


Ruderal Botany

by BullRun



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Humor, Master Sword (Legend of Zelda), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Zelda focused, giving zelda everything she deserves, i promise we'll get to the fluff. just trust me, in a legal sense this is a roadtrip fic, just a lot of horses actually, link has the triforce of wisdom, spoilers ahead for tag readers, this is rated teen for swearing, triforce swap, zelda has the triforce of courage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BullRun/pseuds/BullRun
Summary: The study of plants that grow on ruins, rubble, and disturbed ground.A Zelda centric post canon fic.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 84





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi yall! first big multichapter project in a while. shout out to the writing discord for beta reading and supporting this fic  
> im aiming to post weekly on thursdays so if i miss a week please yell at me at [my tumblr](https://bullrunpicnicker.tumblr.com/)  
> ok thanks love you!

Zelda felt numb. Empty. Hollow. She was hardly aware of anything around her. She was on a horse, sitting limp and dazed like cargo. Her riding instructor would have criticized her poor posture, but she could hardly care less. There was Link, of course. She was behind him in the saddle. She rested her forehead on his back and let her eyes close. She let her buzzing head ring and ache. Her thoughts were stormcloud heavy with pain and worry.

She could feel her forehead against Link’s tunic. She could feel the gentle gait of the horse shift as it walked. She could hear his quiet breaths and her restrained gasps.

She grit her teeth and tried to cry silently.

The horse walked slow and steady. 

When she had pulled herself together enough to open her eyes, the sun was lower. Their lumpy shadow, Link-Zelda-horse combined, stretched out across the rolling green fields. She wiped her sleeves carefully under her eyes.

Zelda tried to ask where they were, but only managed to let out a cracked, “where?”

Link hummed back in response. Zelda could almost feel him roll his words around, fitting them together in his mind. She focused on the feel of her cheek against the back of his tunic. 

The rolling fields were beautiful. Open, empty, and green. 

Empty, empty, empty.

The numbness was fading, just a bit, replaced by faint irritation. 

“Where are we going?” Her words were weak and wavered in the quiet air.

Link didn’t turn to look at her. He shrugged and kept his attention on the road ahead. 

Zelda sighed and slumped forward, leaning all her weight on Link. He was completely unmoved by the pressure. 

He wasn’t talking. Zelda fought down her sting of irritation. That, at least, was familiar. As her knight, he had often spent spells of time not talking. His stoic knight routine was infuriating to a young Zelda, jealous of his ability to wield the Master Sword, while she suffered and prayed for some spark of connection to her own promised powers. When they had grown closer, Link had confided in her that he wasn’t quiet out of a smug superiority, like her frustrated thoughts had assumed. Sometimes he was simply nonverbal. Overwhelmed with weighty responsibility, just like her. Sometimes, nothing obvious caused it. 

She rubbed her face into his back again. If there was ever a reason to feel overwhelmed, defeating Calamity Ganon would be it. They were both still trembling with nerves still. She really should have seen it coming. Was she really so cruel to not notice his struggles? She had hoped that she had learned that lesson a century ago, but alas.

She closed her eyes and dozed. There was no pressing need to bother him further. 

It’s not like she had anywhere to go. 

* * *

They rode for hours at a plodding walk. Zelda fell in and out of awareness, but the surrounding were always the same. Rolling fields of grass, a few scattered trees, and the sound of the horse’s hooves on the packed dirt trail.

It grew dark softly between exhausted blinks. The sun was just hidden behind the horizon when Link finally pulled on the reins and stopped the horse. No dramatic sunset, just a slow dimming of the sky and a kiss of fading orange and pink. Anticlimactic. 

They set up camp under a copse of trees. Well, Link set up camp. Zelda collapsed off the horse and sat dazed in the grass. She watched him with blank eyes as he assembled a cheery campfire, untacked the horse, and set a few rough bowls of… something to warm on the coals. 

He hunched over the fire and watched the bowls with a strange intensity. His clothes were stained, blue fabric and brown leather marred with dried stains of brown and dark purple. It wasn’t the champion’s tunic that her knight had worn, but it was the same shade of blue.

She tilted her head as she considered him. 

Her knight. 

Link met her eyes for a moment, before returning his gaze to the fire, almost embarrassed. 

Was he still her knight? Or had time and memory worn him away, shaped him into a stranger? Did she truly know this man? 

Did he know her?

Did he ever know her? Did  _ she _ know herself?

He handed her a bowl, snapping her out of her thoughts. She took it with surprisingly steady hands. It was some light colored broth filled with small chunks of vegetables. Simple and hardy. He sat next to her and dug into his own bowl with ferocious zeal. He didn’t look at her while he ate. Instead, his gaze was fixed ahead of him, past the flicker of the fire. 

Zelda finished her broth efficiently. It warmed her, but the numbness lingered. She straightened her spine as regally as she could manage.

“Tell me about Hyrule. How much is left? How many villages remain?”

Link scooted closer to her and pulled out her Sheikah Slate. He opened the map and tilted it towards her. She looked. Heart clenching, she tore the slate out of his loose grip to get a closer look. Link let her, his hands dangling limp in front of him. 

Her heart pulsed with loss. The landscape was the same. The same rivers stroked between the same mountains and hills. But  _ her people _ . 

Her people were gone. 

The entirety of Hyrule field was swept clean. She’s already ridden past Castle Town in her daze, so that loss, at least, wasn’t fresh. But everything else… Her eyes skipped over the map erratically. That little town, this outpost, that settlement… The roads still curved to meet them, but they were gone. No label, no name, and hardly more than a few ruins to mark their places.

And then she zoomed out. And out. And out.

Link watched helplessly as she started to sob. Open and ugly and loud. She took great gasping breaths in like she was drowning in herself. She kept her grip on the slate, and continued to look. She zoomed in everywhere she could remember, and found empty wilderness and tiny villages almost reduced beyond recognition. 

Empty and hollow, her loss rang her like a bell. Ringing on and on, beyond when her tears ran out, beyond her catching her shaking breath. It rang in her like a sonorous second heartbeat. Gone, gone, gone. 

The fire burned, Link watched, and she cried. She felt something touch her shoulder and flinched away. Link drew his hand back quickly and wrapped his arms around himself. 

She cried until she couldn’t anymore. Empty again, but raw instead of numb. She was worn out, emotionally and physically. Grief lapped at her like waves, wore her down like sharpening a blade. The world was gone. She had sacrificed everything she had, her life, her untempered powers, her time... And the world was still gone. 

They had defeated Calamity Ganon. They had won.

But she had failed Hyrule. And now she had to live in the ruins.

“I miss my father. I miss everyone.” Her voice was harsh and cracked.

Link’s eyes were horribly soft.  _ Sympathetic. _ Pitying. Where was her stoic knight who had watched her impassively during the worst moments of her life?

“You’re not my Link.” She didn’t consciously want to say that aloud, but Zelda was too tired for his pity. Her voice and gaze were directed to her boots. 

Link made a distressed noise. 

Zelda snapped her attention back to him. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean… you’re different. The Link I knew… you’re not the same.”

Link wrung his own hands. “I’m Link.” The tone was unsteady, questioning.

Zelda flung out a hand in a dismissive gesture. “That’s not what I- ugh. I can’t explain it properly.”

Link shrugged uncomfortably. 

She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want to look at this familiar stranger anymore. What she wanted was to sleep. So, she stood up on stiff legs, walked to the horse, and dug through the saddlebags until she found a blanket. 

“I’m going to sleep,” she said unnecessarily. 

Link wasn’t even looking at her. He was still sitting at the fire and poking it with a twig to make the embers leap. He looked so small in the firelight. Zelda folded herself up in the blanket in the dirt and fell asleep almost instantly. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *comes back with a chapter thats twice as long as the previous* anD ANOTHER THING

When Zelda awoke from a thankfully dreamless sleep, she was confused, and ruffled, and wrapped in a travel blanket that slept so strongly of horse that she briefly worried that she had borrowed some of Link’s horse tack to sleep. She cracked open one eye. In the thin morning light, the air was quiet but for a light _swish_ coming from across the campfire. She sat up, still swaddled in her borrowed blanket.

Across the cool remains of the campfire, Link was awake. Seemingly, he had been up for a while. His hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail as he practiced with the Master Sword. He moved smoothly from stance to stance, almost meditative. The sword danced smoothly through the air, quick as thought. 

Zelda felt that pang of loss in her stomach again. Though impressive, Link’s forms were unfamiliar. They were efficient, without any of the stately history of the traditional Hylian guard. They were also too open, unprepared for any parries or feints from an opponent. It was a battle style that would be perfect against monsters or beasts, but untested against a trained swordsman. 

Not her knight.

Link made eye contact as she stared. He gave her a little wave and a genuine smile. He was clearly happy to see her. 

She was caught in her own thoughts as Link swiftly cleaned up their little camp. He tacked the horse efficiently, adjusting straps and giving the horse a few affectionate pats. He pulled two warm meat and mushroom skewers out of the low fire and handed her one. She gnawed on ravenously as he packed everything back onto the horse. 

Zelda watched him as she ate. Link was practically giddy this morning, and she wasn’t sure why. She flicked her greasy skewer into the grass absently. 

Link swung up into the saddle of his horse with one hand still occupied by his uneaten skewer. He grinned at her, openly happy. He offered his hand to help her up.

Zelda started to reach for him, but hesitated with her hand aloft. “You seem rather chipper this morning,” she said, not quite a question, but not _not_ a question.

“I’m happy you’re here.” He said guilelessly.

She took his hand, and swung up on the saddle behind him.

* * *

They rode through the outskirts of Hyrule Field. Today, buoyed by a good breakfast and a good night's sleep, she was far more aware of her surroundings. They were traveling east towards the Dueling Peaks. Her sense of geography was a little skewed, but they had not yet crossed the Hylia River. Unless it had moved in the last 100 years. Or perhaps they had crossed it when she was asleep yesterday.

Either way, it was green fields and rolling hills as far as the eye could see. 

Zelda was caught completely off guard by a sudden loud noise.

“Hey!” A Hylian man with long dark hair on a chestnut paint horse was riding towards them. Their dirt trail was meeting up with his larger road at an angle. The man was waving his hand to get their attention, while the horse was ambling sedately. 

Link raised a hand to wave back. Zelda restrained the urge to hide behind Link or push him out of the way to get a better look at the man. Seeing another person for the first time in a hundred years… It felt momentous, in some strange way. 

The man pulled back on his reins to stop his horse at the intersection. When they came abreast of him, he clicked his tongue. His horse sedately matched pace with their horse. He dropped his reins and turned his attention completely away from the path. Zelda was faintly astonished at his faith in his horse. 

“Hi,” said Link, after what felt like too long of a pause. The man didn’t seem troubled by it at all.

“Hello again! Link, right?” The man smiled at them both. “It’s been a while. Haven’t seen you in this neck of the woods in a while.”

Link shrugged. Zelda wished she could see his face. Was he smiling? Nervous? Confused? Was this man an acquaintance? An annoyance?

The man made eye contact with Zelda. He was still smiling. “Your friend ain’t much of a talker, huh? That’s alright. He’s good people. Saved us-” He gestured to his horse. “-from bokoblins more than a few times.”

Zelda sat up straighter in the saddle and hastily unwound her arms from around Link. She was brave enough to make small talk without a shield. “He’s a rather helpful sort. It’s nice to meet you…?”

Link twisted his head around to watch her reaction, grinning wildly. The man lit up with a mischievous smile. Zelda braced herself. 

“I’m Spinch! And this is my horse, Spinch! Confusing? I don’t care!”

Link and Spinch started laughing wildly, and Zelda quickly joined in. She laughed deep from her gut. She laughed until she was gasping for breath. She maybe even laughed a little longer than proprietary deemed appropriate, but when she had gotten control of her giggles, she could tell that Spinch wasn’t offended. If anything, he seemed inordinately pleased.

“I haven’t laughed like that in...” A hundred years. More, perhaps. “...a long time.”

There was a twinkle in Spinch’s eye. “No problem, miss.”

She suddenly remembered her years of courtly training about etiquette. She held out her hand for a handshake. Nothing too formal, just the polite grip of a princess to a visiting ambassador. That seemed appropriate. It wasn’t like she could demand a bow from him, and _she_ wasn’t going to curtsey. “It is nice to make your acquaintance, Spinch and Spinch. I am Pr- You may call me Zelda.”

Spinch shook her hand. The unmatched gaits of their two horses made it a bit bumpy, but they managed. “Zelda, huh? Like the princess! What a funny coincidence. Where y’all headed?”

Zelda felt suddenly off balance. Did he not-?

“Hateno,” said Link. 

“Cute place,” said Spinch. “We’re going to Lurelin Village ourselves. Nothing like that ocean breeze! Can’t beat fish for dinner, either.”

“Hold on,” interrupted Zelda. “Hateno? Where is that? What’s in Hateno?”

“Oh, Hateno is a mite east of here,” answered Spinch. “Nice little place. Lots of shops, lots of kids.”

Link shrugged sheepishly and turned forward to watch the road. “House.”

“House?”

Link’s face pinched as he struggled with being put on the spot. “...My house.”

Zelda’s mind was awhirl with implications. Link, her Link, a hundred years ago, had lived in the castle. Before he was discovered and given the Master Sword, he was a knight in training and presumably lived either at the barracks or in Hyrule Castle Town with his family. A house in Hateno? 

How long had it been since he was revived?

“Well, I’m headed to Riverside Stables to resupply on my trip, so we’ll be sharing the trail for a good bit. Safety in numbers, though this close to that castle it won’t help much.” Spinch’s smile was warm. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Zelda’s tone was distant as she continued to think. Hateno almost sounded familiar. Was it a surviving village? Maybe it was an ancestral home…? “Oh, it’s no trouble.” There was a minute of quiet horse hooves before Zelda’s brain caught up. “Wait, what’s wrong with the castle.”

Spinch had been more considerate than she could have hoped, but at her question he raised an eyebrow. “The guardians? The big machines that shoot lasers at you and yours if you as much as look at them funny? There’s heaps of them around the castle. Some others scattered here and there in the wilderness, but the castle’s the worst of it. Not so many bokoblins or lizalfos, but you don’t need ‘em with those monsters around.”

Zelda flipped her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Oh, you won’t have to worry about that anymore.” She felt Link tense up as she pointed behind them towards the castle ruins. “We defeated Calamity Ganon. The guardians should either be disabled or reverted to their original programming.” She put a hand to her chin in thought as she stared back towards the castle. “Though we haven’t seen any so far, so that’s just a hypothesis. So maybe still steer clear of them.”

She turned back to see Link’s shoulder almost up to his ears, and Spinch’s face was a fun mix of pale faced horror and amused skepticism. 

“What?” Zelda couldn’t keep the smirk off her face. “We did.”

Spinch opened his mouth a couple times unsuccessfully before speaking. “...huh. Well, you did say- And that would make-” He looked at Link. “...huh.”

Zelda felt pride surge through her. They had done it! Why would she hide it? No need to be oblique about it.

“Shouldn’t y’all be like… elderly?”

Link huffed out something like a laugh. The tension was starting to release out of his muscles. 

“I was containing Calamity Ganon with a barrier of Triforce energy strong enough to trap the beast in a bubble of magically permeable suspended spacetime.” She made a flippant gesture. “So I’m still more or less the same age as I was 100 years ago. It’s complicated.”

“I was dead,” Link threw out casually.

“You were dead?” Spinch seemed a bit calmer now that he’d had a minute to think. His eyebrow twitched up in curiosity.

“He wasn’t _dead._ ” She paused. “Oh Hylia, you were dead. Hm.”

“Link is a stalfos?” Spinch was starting to become more alarmed. Horse Spinch picked up his anxiety and sidestepped a little bit away from Magatha. 

“I got better. I’m not dead anymore.”

“He’s not a _stalfos._ ” Zelda failed to elaborate as her train of thought was completely derailed by imagining a stalfos chosen hero. What a thought! A monster fighting monsters? Would the Master Sword even be able to be wielded by a monster? Or perhaps the chosen stalfos would be just as damaged by his own weapon? 

There was a brief lull in the conversation. Spinch was clearly thinking hard. Link was still a little stiff with tension. Zelda felt breezy and cheerful. A slight breeze played with her tangled hair and pulled at her white ruined ceremonial dress. She wrinkled her nose at the feel of it. How out of it had she been that she didn’t even notice how filthy it was? She picked at a patch of dried something on her side. Mud? Blood? She was almost afraid to see the state her hair would be in after the battle and sleeping in the dirt. 

Zelda was torn out of her thoughts by Link clearing his throat. Spinch perked up, too.

“The castle’s still dangerous.” Link’s tone was firm enough that even Zelda was nodding along without really thinking about it. But, they had defeated Ganon. Surely it was safe? She opened her mouth to start to argue and Link hit her with an icy stare. “No one should go near it just yet.”

Spinch nodded. “Seems reasonable. I’m not much of a treasure hunter myself.” He shrugged genially. “Though I suppose it's less ‘scavenging’ and more ‘stealing’ with the ruler of the castle still alive.”

Zelda felt her stomach drop. Looters? Of _Hyrule Castle_?

Link pointed at Spinch in excitement. “Exactly. Anything left there is Zelda’s. And I’m sure monsters are still crawling around it, too.”

Zelda stared back over her shoulder. From this far away, she could only barely make out the ruins of the castle. Ragged spires of blasted stone that should have been towers of clean white stone. She grieved its destruction. Sure, she wasn’t clamoring to go back and sift through the debris, but it was still her home for her entire life. It was hers, and, in a strange way, she belonged to it, too. 

She fought down the tears silently, and wiped any dampness away with a relatively clean bit of her arm. She’ll come back. Not now, when the feelings were still raw. But she would come back. 

She sniffled a bit. She would come back when she was ready.

Spinch made a small noise to get her attention. He politely offered a handkerchief.

“Thank you,” Zelda said as she took it. 

He nodded at her, pleased.

They settled into an easy silence as the horses plodded along the path. The Spinches were seemingly unbothered by the quiet. Zelda could understand why they got along with Link.

“Wait-” Zelda had a sudden thought cut across her busy mind. She pointed at the traveler’s horse. “His horse is named Spinch.” She poked Link in the back hard enough to feel through the armor. “Does your horse have a name? What’s her name?”

Link looked over his shoulder at her. He was beaming. “Her name is Magatha.”

Zelda chuckled. “That’s cute.”

He patted Magatha on the neck. She whickered softly at him. 

She smiled. Link always had a way with horses. That settled, she turned in the saddle to the Spinches.

“Tell me about Hyrule. I would like to know how my kingdom fares.”

* * *

Spinch turned out to be rather knowledgeable about the towns of Hyrule, but a bit fuzzy on the history of the last hundred years. Still, it was reassuring to hear. Spinch was a good man and was patient with her questions, even if he was more familiar with southern Hyrulian trade than anything else.

They rode onwards, chatting idly, as the afternoon slid into a quiet evening. As they neared their destination, Riverside Stables, they started passing other travelers. Hylians on foot and on horseback who waved as they passed. Some of them greeted Link or the Spinches by name. The amount of people and their comradery set a hope fluttering in Zelda’s chest. Hyrule wasn’t gone. Her people were still here.

Zelda straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Her people were still here. And so was she. 

When the stables finally came into sight, Zelda was conflicted. On one hand, clearly some amount of Hylian engineering had remained post Calamity. On the other, it was being used to construct perhaps the most bizarre structure she’d ever seen. It was a towering mess of wood shaped with dangerous enthusiasm into the shape of a horse head. The base of the structure was open, with an enclosed counter area between two openings to the building. The building was framed by a few fences and a cookpot off to one side. 

There were a few people inside the stable, but the cookpot was unoccupied. Link steered Magatha directly towards it, and the Spinches followed. 

The attendant manning the counter gave them an unimpressed look as they passed in front of her. Zelda tried not to feel slighted. Princesses did not feel slighted by the apathetic glare of a citizen. She scrunched up her nose and looked pointedly away. 

Link dismounted and offered her a hand down. She jumped off Magatha and almost collapsed on her sore legs. 

“Nayru, shit,” she complained to herself. 

Spinch dismounted too. “You good, your highness?”

Link chuckled and gestured at her wobbly legs.

Zelda stuck her tongue out at them both. “Laugh it up.”

They complied, and Zelda smiled. 

Link quickly took over the cookpot, stirring the fire higher and throwing a dizzying amount of ingredients in. Spinch turned away to remove horse Spinch’s tack. Zelda quickly tried to mirror him. With quick hands, she unbridled Magatha and removed her saddle and pack to make a heap next to the fire. It had been a long time since she had done anything like this, but muscle memory ran deep. 

Zelda ran a gentle hand over Magatha’s shoulder. She felt… wistful, almost. Her white stallion was so dear to her. A symbol of her freedom and her bond with Link. Magatha turned her head to nudge her with her soft nose. 

She turned back to the cookpot, letting Magatha wander off to graze. Link was finishing up cooking and was trying to hand a bowl to Spinch. Spinch had his hands up defensively. 

“Really, you don’t have to feed me. I’m a grown man. I can cook for myself.”

Link pushed the bowl closer insistently. 

Zelda sat down on Magatha’s saddle. It was a bit hard to balance on, but it kept her from ruining her dress any further in the ash strewn dirt. “Just take it. Link is a good cook.”

Link beamed at her compliment. Spinch acquiesced with a quiet thanks to Link. 

She took a bowl as well. It was some sort of stew, warm and with hints of mushroom. 

They had dinner in the quiet evening air. Zelda listened to the crickets and watched as other travelers rented beds at the open air stable. After they had finished eating, the quiet was comfortable and familiar. 

“I must ask-” Zelda twirled a finger at horse Spinch. “Why did you name your horse after yourself?”

Spinch smiled warmly. He seemed softer in the dying sunset. “Funny story, that. He was a gift, so I got to pick out his name. And I had been thinking for a long time- trying to come up with the best names. Spinch is the best name, so I named him immediately. When I decided to give myself a more fitting name, I named myself Spinch, too.”

Link nodded. “It’s a really good name.”

“It fits me and it fits him. I really love being a Spinch.”

Zelda tilted her head with a soft smile. “I think it suits you.”

She’s still thinking about it as they extinguish the fire. She’s thinking about it as Link pays for 2 beds in the stable. She’s thinking about it as they all claim beds. She’s thinking about it as she slips into her own bed.

Her thoughts hummed through her. Spinch picked his name. He chose a new one when his old name didn’t fit. How brave. How wonderful! The sheer potential in the ability to say ‘this is who I am.’ The capability to figure out who you are. To change people’s perspectives, to be different and better and happier. 

The stable was too loud after the quiet of the wilderness. Everyone was breathing and shifting constantly in the dark. The wind blew uninhibited through the open entrances to the stable. Either way she shifted, her unprotected back would be to an opening. Undefended. Link didn’t seem worried, but the stress of it still made her tense.

The ability to change… To be someone else, someone happier with herself...

In the darkness, she could just barely make out the dark Triforce on the back of her hand. That mark that branded her as Zelda, trapped her as just another princess of Wisdom. A princess ignored by apathetic goddesses. Her ill fitting role confined her and wrapped her in expectations. 

Who would she be, if she wasn’t Zelda?

...Who is she now that her job as Zelda is done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah..... spinch time  
> thank u


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter got split in half and still ended up too long lmao  
> shoutout to the writing discord for softly bullying me into actually writing

Zelda woke up tangled in her sheets and covered in a cold sweat. She felt exhausted, like she hadn’t slept at all. Her dreams were...

Darkness, cold and unfathomable. Limited, bounded,  _ trapped.  _ A hunter weaving her own snare around her. Using that shining power inside her (please please please  _ stay _ ) and casting it around them. Around herself and that thing. That swarming mass of pink and hatred and Power. Roaring and clawing and always there, always too close, and always trying to slip out of the noose around both their necks. 

The world was there, behind her, timeless and frozen and speeding by. But she could not turn away from that horror. Couldn’t let up for even a moment. Could only count time passing (was time passing? it couldn’t be she just got here) by the surge and pull of the Blood Moon making that thing stronger, surging against her bonds that much more.

That thing that turned to her, mouth agape, pink gathering in its throat-

She wiped the sweat from her brow. Her heart was jackrabbiting in her chest. The sun hadn’t even risen above the horizon yet. It was still that predawn gray that coated the landscape with fuzzy mist. As exposed as it felt to sleep in an open air building, it was still a pretty picture. 

Zelda lay in her rented bed and tried desperately to go back to sleep. She squinted her eyes closed forcefully and remained tensely still. Despite her determination, she still was awake by the time the other stable guests had stirred awake and started making noise. 

There was a hand on her shoulder. She turned her head and opened her eyes to see Link’s quizzical expression in the morning light. 

“I’m up,” she rasped.

He raised an eyebrow in question.

She sat up and stretched until her back popped. He stepped back to give her space, but remained hovering nearby. She made a shooing motion at him. He stepped back one step.

Zelda rolled her eyes at his clinginess and got out of bed as quickly as she could. She didn’t want to be here anymore. Link disappeared after she shooed him off a third time. 

Zelda went outside to find Magatha while Link finished up whatever it was he was doing. The mare was standing just by the firepit and snorted in her direction in greeting. Next to the horse was Spinch and Spinch, both looking ruffled and content in the morning light. She raised a hand in greeting. 

Spinch waved back. “Mornin’, princess. Sleep well?”

She grimaced as she approached Magatha to stroke her soft nose. “Am I allowed to lie?”

He laughed kindly. Spinch the horse hooked her head towards Zelda’s hands to nudge her friendly. 

Link emerged from the stables. He trotted over to them with a bounce in his step. 

“Hey there, kid.”

Link nodded to him and started retacking Magatha swiftly. 

“We’re heading out. If you’re ever in the area of Lurelin, stop by. I owe you two a meal. Can’t have myself owing favors to a coupla heroes. No telling what you’ll ask for.” He winked teasingly. He turned to look at Zelda. “Take care of yourselves. Get some rest.” Spinch’s face was warm and sweet. Zelda was going to miss him.

“We will,” Zelda agreed.

With that, the Spinches were on their way. They trotted down the road at a steady clip. Zelda restrained the urge to call out one last time. 

Link swung up on Magatha in one clean motion. Zelda scrambled up behind him. Despite the tired ache behind her eyes, she was almost excited to get going. Having a destination made it feel more like a planned trip than it had been. As much fun as fleeing across the ruined countryside could be, it was far more digestible.

“Where to? Hateno? That’s east, right?” She tucked her cold hands into Link’s cloak.

Magatha started walking briskly down the road. Zelda could just barely see the curve of the Hylia River ahead of them. 

Link nodded. “Bridge across the river. Then follow the roads east. Easy ride.”

Zelda spared one glance back at the peculiar stable. “Glad to know there’s still bridges. Are they horse shaped too, or…?”

Link laughed at her joke.

* * *

The bridge was only a few minutes ride. Across the Hylia River, the road continued east, flanked by a branch in the river broad enough to probably deserve its own name. Ahead was the Dueling Peaks. They were just as grand as she remembered.

Without warning, Link slid off the saddle and hopped to the ground. 

“Don’t want to tire her out,” he explained with a pat to Magatha’s shoulder. “She’s not used to carrying two.”

Zelda nodded. She felt tempted to walk herself, but stayed put. Her sandals were not made to walk on a dirt road by a riverbank. She gave Magatha a sympathetic pat and shot Link’s sturdy boots a jealous glare.

They were only walking for what felt like a few minutes before Zelda spotted something moving in the river. She shaded her eyes as she peered intently. Something was swimming at an intense pace. 

Link didn’t seem to notice. His hand rested on the horse’s neck, leisurely soothing out her coarse fur. Suddenly, a red shape popped out of the river, distant enough to be completely unrecognizable. 

“...Link?” The red dot called. Oh, a zora. 

Link waved excitedly. 

The dot dove below the surface. The zora ripped through the water, sending up dramatic waves as he swam closer. The instant his head breached the surface, he called again. 

“Link!”

Link laughed excitedly. 

The zora, finally close enough to see his teeth flash in a sharp smile, flung himself out of the water. Zelda was supremely glad they were out of splash range. He was inelegant in his haste, laughing as he stumbled into a run. 

“Link!!”

Link stepped away from Magatha and broke into his own sprint towards the zora. He held out his arms. The tall red zora swept Link up in a hug. He was so tall that Link was lifted completely off his feet. The pair swung in a circle, laughing.

“Link, my friend! It’s so good to see you!”

Zelda was absolutely bewildered. It felt impossible for her to continue to be surprised by the number of friends Link had acquired on his travels, but the… enthusiasm was unprecedented. 

The pair of them stopped spinning, but the zora didn’t put him down. Instead, he held Link securely on his hip. Zelda bit back a giggle at the chosen hero being held like a toddler. Link seemed content to be carried.

The zora finally noticed that Link was not alone. His eyes lit up as he caught sight of her.

“Oh! Hello, friend of Link. I am Prince Sidon of the Zora. It is so very nice to meet you!”

Oh.

Oh no.

Zelda could feel her mischievous smile freeze as her brain stalled.  _ Prince _ Sidon? Royalty? Etiquette could be flexible with citizens, but the rituals between royalty were a precise dance. A single wrong step could spell political disaster. And she was dirty and tired and on a horse and Sidon was still holding Link like a toddler and walking towards her.

Link piped up before she could finish panicking and trying to remember the correct words and gestures to avoid insulting a prince of the Zora. “This is Princess Zelda.”

Prince Sidon froze midstep. Zelda got to see her own worries take over the cheerful smile on his face. A funhouse mirror that was 9 feet tall and bright red. She slid off the horse as elegantly as she could. She kept her hands behind her back, if only to keep herself from twisting them in anxiety. Was this a curtsy situation? Should he be kissing her hand? Should she bow?

She looked up at Prince Sidon’s face. He was handsome, in that charmingly zora way. That same apprehension was writ large across his face, but it snapped to a more intent expression in between blinks. He set Link down carefully.

...And swept her up into a crushing hug.

Zelda let her hands fall limp in surprise before hugging back tentatively. The future was so weird. Maybe this is how it works now. Why not. 

“Thank you,” murmured Prince Sidon into the top of her hair. “Thank you for protecting him. Thank you for protecting Hyrule.”

“Uh.” Zelda could feel her eyes start to water. 

Sidon released her almost too soon. She tried to surreptitiously wipe her eyes with her hand. Sidon loomed over her with a wobbly smile. Link was at his elbow with a surprised grin.

Prince Sidon suddenly knelt before her, bringing himself to almost eye level. He tilted his head in a bow, but made fierce eye contact.

“Princess Zelda, as the crown prince of Zora’s Domain, I reaffirm our kingdoms’ allegiance and pledge our support as your stalwart allies. The Zora owe you our lives for your bravery and excellence in the fight against Calamity Ganon.” He swallowed and looked a bit sheepish. “ _ I _ owe you. Thank you, your majesty.”

Zelda was frozen. How was she supposed to-?

“Uh. Thank you? I- I accept.” She started to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder, but tried to cover it into an airy gesture. 

Link poked his head around Sidon. He looked very happy to be there. Zelda made a face at him. He couldn’t have told her his best friend was the crown prince of the zora? She should have been more prepared for this. Link beamed back like a golden retriever.

Prince Sidon rose back to his full height. Him being tall made sense, actually. Royal zoras tended to be rather large on average. Mipha was an exception at her more petite size. His face split into a wide sharp toothed smile. 

“What are you doing this far downstream?” 

Prince Sidon chuckled warmly. “In short? Looking for you. Vah Ruta fired off a massive beam of light, so I volunteered to see if it was all over. I’m rather glad to see you two in good shape rather than…” He trailed off meaningfully.

“Rather than an unchecked Calamity Ganon tearing its way across the countryside?” Zelda tried to soften her words with a cheeky smile.

“Precisely!” Sidon pumped his fist excitedly. 

“We did it,” affirmed Link. “Zelda and I beat him.”

“I knew you could do it, my friend!” Sidon looked like he was one second away from sweeping Link up in another hug.

“It was incredible. Zelda released him when I got inside the castle, and the Divine Beasts blasted him. It changed forms! And then we battled it outside and Zelda made this bow out of magic-”

“The Bow of Light. It’s-” Zelda cut herself off. She still didn’t know how to feel about the bow. Being able to summon the traditional Zelda weapon… It was an odd feeling. She didn’t even think about it in the moment. She just… knew she could do it. She wasn’t sure if she was upset or relieved that her powers only seemed to work during extreme danger. 

...She was still angry.

“Yeah! So, Zelda gave me the bow, and I used it to take him down for good.”

Zelda tried not to hunch her shoulders. Watching Calamity Ganon be struck by that final arrow and watching its form rip itself apart in a wave of light… It should have felt triumphant, but Zelda can only remember the feeling of her heart in her throat.

Sidon’s eyes were wide with curiosity. “How fascinating! I’m glad you made it through in one piece, my friend.”

Link beamed. Zelda shuffled her feet. 

Prince Sidon let his smile shine on both of them for a moment longer. “My people will be thrilled to hear of your success! You must visit Zora’s Domain whenever you have the chance, my friends. We will have a feast in your honor! We are in your debt.”

Linked nodded quickly. “Absolutely. We’ll visit. Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Zelda tilted her head at Link quizzically. He wasn’t talkative by any metric, but with Sidon he was almost... chatty. It was fascinating. 

Sidon glanced up at the sun. “I’d stay longer to chat, my friends, but I must return to tell my people the good news! We are free from Calamity Ganon, and it's all thanks to you two.”

Before Zelda could process what was happening, she and Link were swept up in a tight hug. Zelda could feel her legs dangle before Sidon adjusted his hold and-

Now they were  _ both _ being held like toddlers. By the crown prince of the zora.

Zelda hid her eye roll in hugging back. The future was so weird. Not bad, but weird.

With that, Sidon was setting them down, saying his goodbyes, and jogging back to the river. Link and him waved at each other wildly until the exact moment that Sidon had to use his arms to dive into the water. Zelda waved too, not bothering to hide her smile at their antics. In a moment, the zora was rushing back the way he’d come. He was a red streak in the water.

Link waved at Sidon for a moment longer after he had disappeared from sight. A mischievous smile dawned on her face as she watched him. She almost wanted to tease him for being apparently irresistible to zora royalty, but held her tongue. It might be a bit too soon to bring up Mipha. Oh. She had forgotten to offer her condolences to Prince Sidon. Too late now. 

As a pair, they walked back to Magatha, still patiently waiting for them. The horse blew out a breath of hot air at Link’s hair when he got close enough. He chuckled and took hold of her reins. He gestured with the reins towards the road ahead.

Zelda understood him immediately. “Yeah, I can walk for a bit. That’s fine.”

Link nodded with a relieved expression as they started walking. “I don’t want to tire out Magatha. She’s not used to carrying two people.”

Zelda tried to match her pace to Link’s casual saunter. “Where did you get her? She’s a fine horse.”

Link’s mouth opened in mild surprise. “She’s wild. Everyone’s horses from before are just loose all around Hyrule.”

“Feral herds?”

He nodded quickly. “You can just grab ‘em. They’re half tame. Most of them.”

Zelda thought that over with a hum. It made sense. She didn’t exactly want to dwell on the quantity of feral horses after the Calamity, but she was at least a little relieved that she hadn’t woken up in a horse-free Hyrule. The idea of that was distressing to say the least.

They continued walking towards the Dueling Peaks. Zelda watched them loom closer and closer. Link was slowly hunching over. When she glanced at him, he was chewing on his lip. They were almost to the mountain before he spoke.

“Are you mad? At me?”

The first thing Zelda’s mind jumped to was his relationship with Prince Sidon. They were clearly in some sort of romantic entanglement or on the precipice before one. How could she be mad? She and Link weren’t together, not before the Calamity. She had no claim on him. And even if she-

“For not fighting Ganon sooner?” Link blurted out and interrupted her stream of thought.

Zelda blinked at him owlishly. 

He chewed his lip again. “For going around and helping people and activating the Divine Beasts instead of going to you?”

Zelda stopped walking. Link stopped too. Magatha stopped politely as well. His eyes were darting between searching her face and away from her. His whole body was turned away from her and his shoulders were hunched. 

Zelda reached out a hand. She started to cup his cheek but redirected to clasping his shoulder firmly. His opposite hand automatically raised to cover hers lightly.

“I’m not mad. There’s nothing to be mad about. You did wonderfully, Link.”

His smile lit him up like a lantern in the dark and made him shine. His face was slightly flushed. He patted her hand lightly and she let go automatically. They started walking again. Zelda hid her smile by looking out at the scenery. 

* * *

By the time they were between the Dueling Peaks, Zelda and Link were both mounted again. Zelda because she didn’t really want to lose a sandal by the muddy stream that ran between the peaks, and Link because she might have pointed out that he was still shorter than her. So now he was sitting up as straight as he could in the saddle as Zelda snickered. 

In the dim shade between the peaks, something moved above them. 

A flock of keese shrieked and fluttered from cracks in the high cliff sides. The little monsters’ eyes glinted in the gloom.

Zelda jerked her head up and let out a warning cry. Link, somehow, already had a bow in his hands and had an arrow loosed into the air before she could say anything. In quick succession, he fired again and again. Not every arrow hit the tiny targets, but every arrow that did, hit true. The monsters were felled in a burst of magic and monstrous viscera. 

In less than a minute, the flock was gone. None had gotten close enough to even attempt to bite them. Link was methodical as he slowly surveyed the area for more foes. Zelda’s heart was still thundering in her chest.

He let out a breath and rolled his shoulders. Zelda watched with mild fascination as he reached down and tapped on the Sheikah Slate hanging on his thigh. The slate lit up at his touch and the bow in his hands glowed and disappeared. 

Right, the slate’s inventory. She had been so distracted by the arrival of the keese that she hadn’t seen him pull the bow. The inventory solved the question she wasn’t aware she was still wondering. He must have plenty of weapons stored in there. That was probably where he was pulling all those meals from as well. It would explain why he kept having to warm things at the fire. The slate was rather good at storing items of all sorts, but some foods tended to cool off if they were in the slate for too long.

Link shook out his hands and flexed his arms. Zelda thought to ask if she could examine the slate’s inventory for herself, but thought better of it. The thought of the map still sat heavy in her stomach. 

“We’ve been lucky,” Zelda observed as Link nudged Magatha back into motion. “No monsters for two days.”

Link glanced over his shoulder at her with a tight grin. “Tempting fate,” he warned.

Zelda looked away from him to study the cliff walls. “Not me. I’m planning on continuing to be lucky.”

He huffed out a little laugh at that. Zelda was pleased at the sound. This Link didn’t get stony and blank when she was near combat. That was a positive, at least.

They rode onwards through the peaks with no further trouble. Once they emerged blinking into the sun, Link slipped off Magatha. Zelda got off as well without thinking much of it. Her eyes were fixed on the sight ahead of them. 

It was a beautiful meadow. Far, far in the distance were forests and hills and mountains. It was breathtaking. Flowers, small and yellow, were dusting the field. The wind swept through the long grass like a wave on the ocean. There was a small herd of horses off in the near distance. 

Link was saying something, gesturing to the tall wooden lookout point that loomed over the area. Zelda wasn’t paying him any attention. Her focus was on the horses grazing calmly.

Specifically, the lead horse. A bay with striking white socks. 

Zelda grabbed Magatha’s reins and yanked them out of Link’s hands. She jumped on her back as nimbly as she could and was spurring her forward with a yell before Link could even react. Magatha sped forward into a gallop that snapped Zelda’s tangled hair back.

She let out a half laugh half whoop and stood up in the stirrups. This was so wonderful! She missed this.

Magatha was quick, and they were almost amongst the wild herd before they realized they were there. The horses startled and reared, twisting to launch themselves away from Zelda. She tugged on the reins and Magatha swerved after the bay. The bay that was only just starting to react. 

In an instant, they charged next to the surprised horse. Zelda flung herself from the saddle. She landed roughly on the withers and clutched her arms around the horse’s neck desperately. The bay bucked and twisted. Zelda was violently jerked as she clung to her back. Her arms burned with effort.

She grit her teeth and hung on. She had hung on for longer in worse situations. She could do this.

The bay snorted and hopped sideways in one last buck before stilling. Her sides heaved with exertion. She tossed her head and stomped her hooves just a bit. 

Zelda unwound her arms and settled into a more comfortable seat. “Fiesty one, aren’t you?”

The horse pawed at the ground again. Zelda breathed out a laugh through her nose.

Magatha, who had sped off after Zelda had catapulted off of her, had slowed to a trot and had circled back to Zelda. She approached the other horse cautiously. They sniffed each other's noses for a moment before Magatha stepped a bit closer to sniff Zelda’s leg.

She laughed. “You’re a worse worrywort than Link, I swear.”

As if summoned, Link dashed up behind the bay. He was panting and had a panicked look on his pale face. 

Zelda slid off the bay, keeping one hand still on her mane just in case. “I’m fine, Link. Look! I got a horse. We can travel faster now. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Link paused. After a moment of contemplation, he nodded firmly. Zelda turned back to the bay, now that Link was assured of her safety or whatever. Now that the impulsive thrill was over, she could feel that pit in her stomach again. She tried to ignore it.

She was a good horse, that was obvious. A soft coat, strong legs, and perhaps a slightly more wild personality than Magatha. Maybe a bit too clever, but sweet and fast. Zelda felt a twinge of bitter guilt. The world had ended - she had failed the world - and here she was catching horses. The failure hung heavy in her gut. 

She stroked the horse’s velvet soft nose absently. It blew warm air into her face through its wide nostrils. It smelled like wet horse and sweet grass. 

She was allowed to have this. She had suffered and fought and the world was still  _ here _ , still alive. Still flowers in meadows and people on the road. She deserved this. She had to believe that she still deserved this.

She steeled herself as best she could. This was a happy moment. She was very happy. She was very proud. She had accomplished something. She had to hold onto that.

Zelda flashed a suddenly shaky smile at Link. He smiled warmly back with soft eyes. Magatha hooked her head over his shoulder and started to mouth at his hair. 

Zelda swung back up on the bay and tried to remember all the tricks of riding bareback. The horse shivered under her legs. The next stable they passed, she’d pick up some tack to make riding a bit more comfortable. For now, it was almost romantic. She felt like a storybook heroine astride her noble steed as she wrapped a few shanks of messy mane around her hands. 

“Do you have a name for her?” asked Link. He swung up on Magatha in one smooth motion. 

Zelda smiled, happy and light. “I think I’ll call her Spinch.”

The horse lightly spooked and sidestepped at the sudden noise of their laughter.


	4. Chapter 4

Zelda sat astride her new horse giddily. Spinch danced in place with excitement. Link gave her a bemused look from atop Magatha. The field stretched out all around them. 

Zelda focused on a large, dark boulder well across the field. She pointed it out. “To there?”

Link nodded. 

Zelda didn’t wait for anymore acknowledgement. She kicked her heels into Spinch’s sides and yelled. The horse startled into a gallop. It was incredibly bumpy and uncomfortable without stirrups to hold herself up in or even a saddle, but it felt wonderful. She felt fast and free. Unstoppable. 

Zelda barked out a laugh. She could just see Magatha’s nose in the corner of her eye, but she didn’t dare look. She kept her full attention ahead of her.

Zelda got there first. Spinch bucked a little as they crossed their ad hoc finish line, shying away from the ominously shaped boulder. As Zelda tried to soothe her, their competition shot past. Link and Magatha broke out of a gallop and turned on a dime to trot back to them. If she didn’t know better, Zelda would have bet that it was showboating.

Link grinned at her. She whooped out a laugh. Her attention snapped away from him before she could gloat.

“Wait, is that…?”

She slipped off her horse to investigate the boulder. The thing was covered in debris and vegetation, but Zelda would recognize it anywhere. She peeled off some moss from the nearest panel. It felt coldly ceramic. 

Link made an uncomfortable noise.

“It’s a guardian. A ruined model, no doubt. Legless. Still, it must have functioned somewhat recently.” She pointed at the rubbed smooth underside. “Look, no plants and hardly any dirt. And no signs of anything large enough to turn it manually. So it must have been activated.” She put a hand to her chin. “Perhaps… It is a bit soon, but without Calamity Ganon, these things should be perfectly safe again. I’d like to look into safeguards against them being reprogrammed again, and the populace wouldn’t trust them for quite some time, but it's definitely…” She trailed off, lost in thought. She held out a hand behind her impatiently. “Link, my slate.”

After a brief hesitation, Link placed the slate into her hand. 

She fought past a shudder as she booted the thing up. She very carefully avoided the map and switched it to a different mode. The slate pinged slowly as it searched for compatible technology. She hummed as she fiddled with the toggles and settings. It continued to ping at the same rate. 

Zelda let out a frustrated growl. “Did you break the slate? It's not picking up on the guardian’s signal.” For the first time since she had approached the guardian, she looked at Link.

Link looked, bizarrely, deeply guilty. He was wringing his hands and his face was flushed. 

“Maybe,” he said. “But. I think. That this guardian. Isn’t going to. Work?”

Zelda crossed her arms over the slate and raised an eyebrow. “And why not?”

Link chewed his lip and ran his hand through his shaggy hair. “Uh.”

She fought back a teasing smile and tried to stay stoic. “Why wouldn’t it work, Link?”

“Um.” Both hands were now twisting his too long strands of hair. “Don’t be mad, but. I might. Have. Hit it with a sword?”

“Oh, that shouldn’t-”

“At full speed on Magatha.”

“Well-”

“Until it exploded.”

Zelda herself exploded into laughter. Full leg-slapping guffaws. Link started laughing, too. 

It was a good amount of time when she had finally gotten a hold of herself and managed to restrain her giggles. Link let his chuckles die down too. 

“That would explain it!” she concluded. 

“I’ll let you experiment on the next working one, I promise,” Link assured her. 

* * *

Zelda hadn’t realized how deeply frustrating having to walk was. With two horses, they could stay at a mile-eating canter for hours without any worry of exhausting their mounts. Link seemed relieved too, and was smiling more broadly than before. With the wind in their hair and their mounts matching each other’s pace automatically, Zelda could finally let her mind quiet. 

It was only early afternoon when they spotted a small village clustered at the base of a high hill. The hill itself had an observatory perched atop, but Zelda only had eyes for the village. Her gaze flitted from building to building. Link lived here. Which was his?

Her full interest was captured by the thought. It wasn’t about the house itself, not really. Everyone lived somewhere, so it was no huge upheaval to discover that he had a home. It was about the science of it. Peeling apart the layers of Link like dissecting a flower. Removing the petals to expose the internal structure to see how it all fit. 

Link pulled ahead of her to lead the way. They dropped out of a canter into an uncomfortable trot. Zelda grimaced at trying to keep her composure and her seat while at a bareback trot. She hoped that no one was looking. 

The main street was bustling, with people walking the streets, talking, and popping in and out of shops. Zelda stared. There was a small pack of young children chasing each other and wrestling like puppies. They were so small, so young. Post-Calamity children playing without a care in the world. 

Spinch turned unexpectedly to the right. Zelda pulled herself together to see that Link had turned off the main road to a smaller street. They passed by a cluster of houses and kept going. Link and Magatha pulled ahead a little more as they passed over a small bridge towards a small house. Spinch slowed to a walk as Zelda took it all in. 

The house was rather charming. It was a bit bigger than the houses that they had passed in town proper, but not by much. There was a tall, dramatic chimney. Clean walls, with no moss. The whole effect was rustic yet new. Not a family heirloom then. This was something built for him. Or perhaps refurbished. Her grasp on the timeline of events was still shaky, but she was certain that Link hadn’t spent a year or two hiring masons to lay the stone of the wall. 

Link was untacking Magatha and letting her loose by the time she walked up. No fences to hold the horses, but the landscape sloped in such a way that the horses would have to climb if they wanted to leave the area, so it seemed mostly safe to turn them out here. Zelda slipped off her mount and gave her a firm pat on the shoulder in thanks.

Spinch sniffed lightly before walking towards the pond beside the house. Magatha finished chewing on Link’s hair and followed. Link smiled at the horses before motioning her towards the front door.

Zelda followed him in, peering around his shoulder inquisitively. Her first impression was the smell. It smelled stale, like the windows hadn’t been opened in far too long. Her second thought was that the place was… There was something  _ off _ that she couldn’t put her finger on.

It was a nice enough place. Simple and rustic, but competently built. The majority of the main room was occupied with a rough hewn table. There were ornate weapons displayed on the walls for hypothetical guests to admire. A set of stairs led up, presumably to a sleeping area. Zelda could just spy a hint of a storage area behind the stairs. It looked empty. 

She climbed the stairs to investigate. It was a bedroom. A single bed, neatly made. A desk without ink stains or loose papers. A low bookshelf, empty of knickknacks. Clean. Neat.

That’s what was bothering her. It was impersonal. Nothing here reminded her of Link at all, and it didn’t seem like he even spent much time here. It was lifeless and stale. The house, though cozy to her castle-biased sensibilities, was large for one person. Too large. Link must rattle and echo in this place like the last rupee in a purse.

With her curiosity satisfied, she looked over the railing to see what Link was up to. He was still in the main dining area. 

The Bow of Light was in his hands. He was carefully hanging it on the wall, just to the left of a ceremonial Gerudo scimitar. 

Zelda felt her stomach heave and squirm at the sight. Her bow, lit from within by its own radiance, hanging like a decoration. Link stepped back to admire it with his hands on his hips. Zelda looked away. 

The air in this house was clogging her lungs. It was too heavy. 

“Let me show you the town.” Link said as she climbed downstairs.

She just nodded.

With one last look at her bow, she followed Link outside. He gestured towards the town excitedly. She tried to match his enthusiasm, but her mind was still chewing over his house. They walked back to that bustling little main street. Zelda tried to focus on the bright happy little town and shake the weird emotion Link’s house drew out of her. The children were still playing, but their game had clearly shifted to something hiding based rather than tag. One tiny child was crouched, giggling, in a bush as they passed. 

She followed Link’s lead. As they walked, villagers waved and greeted Link. He waved back cheerily. Zelda got some curious looks and a few polite hellos, but no one recognized her. She was almost glad of the anonymity, considering how travel worn and dirty she must look. 

Princess of Hyrule, bearer of Wisdom, and she was being seen by her citizens in more mud than dress. Hylia forgive her. 

She was distracted by watching the children, so she didn’t immediately notice when Link broke off the path towards a shop. Link pushed through the door. With just a smidge of hesitation, she followed. It was a tailor’s shop. clearly, with several mannequins displaying their wares. 

Zelda’s eyes widened. There was a mannequin with an incredible outfit on it. Leather, too many belts, and a matching hooded cloak. She rubbed the edge of the tunic between her fingers without even thinking. It looked like everything her ceremonial dress was not. A traveler’s tunic, an adventurer’s armor. Sturdy boots so she wouldn’t be bogged down in the mud anymore. It was perfect, even more than her old blue traveling outfit.

“Interested in the Hylian tunic, miss?” asked a voice from behind her. Zelda turned to see a shy looking shopkeep.

“Yes.” Zelda was nothing if not decisive. “I’ll need the whole set.” 

“That’ll be 270 rupees.”

“I got it,” interjected Link. He and the shopkeep moved to the counter to finish the transaction. She could hear the amusement in the shopkeeper's voice. 

Zelda flushed a little at her forgetfulness and her brashness. Princesses generally didn’t worry about rupees, at least not within their own countries. There was no treasury anymore to foot the bill, though.

Almost too quickly, Zelda was holding a set of armor that was just her size and standing outside on the tailor’s stoop. She couldn’t keep her eyes off of it. She wondered if it would be appropriate to throw on the boots and cloak at least. 

“I’ll-” she started, embarrassed. 

“It’s a gift,” he reassured her. His voice was warm and his smile pleased. “Let’s go to the dye shop. Unless you love red and green as a tunic color?”

She snorted involuntarily. “I look horrid in red, are you kidding?”

* * *

They exited the dye shop not too much later, side by side and brimming with happiness. Her newly dyed tunic was now a steady fern green. The clashing red had been completely covered, thankfully. Link was talking, still. Chatty and relaxed. 

“Up the hill is the observatory. I think you’ll like Purah. She’s a scientist, like you. She helped me figure out the Sheikah Slate. We can visit her tomorrow. It’s starting to get late.”

Tomorrow. The word sat heavy in her gut. Tomorrow. 

Tomorrow she would still be here.

“Oh,” exclaimed Link. His tone was astonished and pleased.

Zelda looked around for what he had seen. The streets were starting to clear with the setting sun, and there was nothing but houses around them. 

Link stepped over a low wall around someone’s yard. He walked briskly towards their house. Zelda let out a squeak of outrage before following. 

She started to scold him for his rudeness, but snapped her mouth shut when she saw what had grabbed his interest. 

Link was standing alert in front of a statue of Hylia. This particular one was slightly larger than a standard roadside monument, and had a tiny roofed shrine to protect it from the elements. A well-loved personal shrine.

Zelda tensed at the sight. 

She turned away to give Link some privacy. She didn’t begrudge him this. She couldn’t. 

As he prayed to a goddess that had ignored her, she stepped away. She leaned on the low stone wall that they had jumped to get here. The town spread out below her sleepily. In the dimming light, she could see the blue shine of an activated shrine. Interesting. She turned her head to follow the curve of the road with her eyes, tracking past houses and windmills and up to that strange observatory. 

She kept turning. There, at the back of the town, was Mount Lanayru. The hairs on the nape of her neck stood up just looking at it. The Spring of Wisdom wasn’t visible from here, of course, but Zelda could feel its weight. The site of her last best hope to activate her powers. The last attempt to call desperately to goddesses who would not answer. Even a century later, she can hardly shake the memory of cold water up to her knees on a blisteringly cold mountain. Hours of waiting and praying and hoping and cursing. No voice from Hylia, no whisper or nudge from Nayru. No reply from anyone of what she was doing wrong.

Nothing but the feeling of her body going numb in the cold. 

Link was murmuring to the statue now. His voice was soft and trusting. She closed her eyes and tried not to listen.

When Link was done talking to Hylia, Zelda did not ask him about it. Instead, she begged off any further exploring. He guided her back to his house willingly, and offered his bed. She took it gratefully.

She fell asleep with her arms wrapped around herself to stave off that chill. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did yall get weirdly emotional seeing all the happy kids running around post calamity while playing botw or are u normal


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "can i ask a question?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter got Too Long and also i didnt finish writing/editing it by my self imposed every thursday deadline, so im gonna pretend those facts are connected akljgskljhgdf  
> only a couple more chapters left in this arc! exciting :3c

The summit of the mountain crowned the spring, far above her head. There was a quiet stillness to the air. Nothing but the rush of dagger sharp cold to her exposed face. She was so cold. She couldn’t feel her feet, but knew intuitively that she was standing in the water of the spring. The sweat on her arms prickled as they froze. 

The statue of Hylia rose out of the water before her. It loomed over her, and the mountain loomed over it. 

Something was coming. 

A monster. The monster. The dark shape of Calamity Ganon, dark and horrible and roaring, rose over the mountain and sent the spring into darkness.

She prayed. She was frozen, helpless, desperate. The cold was knife sharp. The statue of Hylia looked on impassively even as darkness pressed down on its worn stone. The statue was cracking under the force. It did not answer her calls. 

Zelda woke with a gasp. Thin light shone through the little window, hardly lighting the tiny house up at all. Zelda lay there and felt her heart pound as she vacantly watched the walls close in. Somehow, sleeping in a truly enclosed space was worse than sleeping outside in the elements. The four walls just reminded her of sleeping in her room in the castle, which made what it lacked even more apparent. It was too small, too quiet, with no servants to call for assistance, or guards for protection, not even-

Where was Link?

She bolted out of bed and stumbled to the window. Peering out, she could see the horses out past the little pond and the tiny stable. They were grazing absently. There was a figure out there with them. Zelda let out a sigh of relief.

Her mind started spinning up to its normal breakneck pace as she moved through her morning activities. There was a half barrel of lukewarm water and some towels tucked away under the stairs next to her new outfit. She made a note to thank Link later. It would be nice to finally be clean.

Her old dress was unsalvageable. Though the idea of throwing away one of the last remnants of her pre-Calamity life didn’t sit well with her, she didn’t hesitate to dunk the thing into a waste basket. (If that basket wasn’t for trash before, it was now.) On one hand, a sacred ceremonial dress made of the finest weave in Hyrule shouldn’t be thrown out thoughtlessly. On the other, literally nothing had ever gone right while she was wearing it. The shoes were uncomfortable, also.

Her new armor was marvelous. The leather still squeaked and some excess dye was staining her hands sage, but she didn’t care. It was simpler than expected to tighten all the belts and straps. In just a few minutes, she was fully armored up. The cloak swished around her shoulders as she circled and tried to get a good look at herself.

She could barely see herself in the dirty bathwater, but she liked what she saw. She looked like a merchant, a traveler, a hylian wayfarer. Clean and new.

Not a princess. 

An ugly smile twisted her face. Why not? Why not pretend? She was already out here, miles from her castle. She’s practically abdicated already. A real princess would have stayed and rebuilt her castle. She coughed out a laugh. No more royal family. No more Hyrule. Just ruins.

She grasped the side of the barrel to hold herself up. She searched in the muddy water for her eyes again. She couldn’t find herself.

“It’s okay. It’s fine. I did everything I could,” she lied. 

The house was quiet and still. The smell of dust was creeping back in.

“I didn’t even like being a princess. I wanted to- I can be whatever I want now! I don’t have to-”

She didn’t have to do anything. There was no one to tell her what to do. 

There was just her. 

“I’m sick of this,” she snapped as she lunged away from the barrel. “I’m not going to fall to tears over this. Just for one day, I’m not going to do this shit.” She twirled on the heel of her new boot just to feel the cloak swing out. “I’m fine. I don’t have to rebuild the whole country in a day.”

She dragged the barrel to the front door and tipped the whole thing out on the grass. The water sloughed over the front lawn like a miniature flood before sinking in. She left the half barrel on the front step as she looked around.

Viewed from his front door, Mount Lanayru loomed over Hateno. She had been so focused on his house and the town that she hadn’t even noticed. She subconsciously pulled her cloak a little more closed. She stared at the peak blankly for too long before she was broken out of her trance by horse noises.

Startled, she headed around the house. There was that little pond and a tiny stable she hadn’t noticed before. Beyond that, was the rolling field. Link was still between the two horses, but he was walking towards her. He was waving his arm cheerfully. The two horses continued grazing, but Spinch neighed quietly at her before continuing.

Zelda waved back. 

Link stepped beside her. He looked rumpled and happy with grass in his hair. She half wondered if the bath was supposed to be for himself.

“Nice.” He gestured at her outfit.

She grinned and spun. “Right? Tailor was spot on.”

“I like the cloak. I have one, too. I think I ended up dying it purple.”

Zelda smirked. Royal purple? Who was the princess now? Her smile dimmed.

“Did you sleep well? Any weird dreams?”

Zelda had never had prophetic dreams. It was just another facet of being Princess Zelda that she lacked. “No. Just the usual.” She tried to keep her voice from wavering. Her nightmares were her own problem.

He hummed thoughtfully at her response. “What do you think of Hateno?”

Instead of immediately answering, Zelda looked at their horses. Standing next to each other, they looked like trick mirror versions of each other. Magatha was muscular and big, with a dull brown coat and a long floppy mane. Spinch was comparatively more svelte. A beautiful bay with striking white socks would have been a prized mount in the royal stables. 

Link nudged her gently. She flinched. Her knight wasn’t the touchy feely sort. Just another thing to get used to.

“It’s… nice. Small.”

He hummed thoughtfully. 

“I think it's a nice place to live. We’ll have to get another bed, of course. Maybe pretty up the stable. Oh, we’ve still got to introduce you to everyone in town. Everyone is really kind here. And I really think you’ll like Purah.” He nodded to himself. “It’s a nice place to heal.”

Zelda felt a prickle on her neck. She felt like a cornered animal. “I-”

Link tilted his head. His loose hair waved in the breeze. “What do you think?”

Trapped, trapped, trapped. Isn’t this exactly what she hated about being a princess? The worst part was she could almost see it. Zelda waking up late every morning. Eating breakfast at that table. Joining Link for a stroll to the general store for a pinch of salt. Chatting with the neighbors about nothing. Watching the grass sway in the wind. Waiting and sitting and living under the loom of that mountain and the weight of her mistakes and the castle still in ruins miles and miles away. Trapped in one place. Still standing in the shattered loop of her broken snare. How was this any different than the last century of grief?

“I’m not staying in Hateno,” she blurted out too loudly. “I’m not going to live in this tiny town. You can’t- I’m not going to.”

“What do you mean?” He was genuinely confused, Hylia bless him.

“I said I’m not living in Hateno!” She was shouting. She didn’t intend to shout, but she liked how it made him take a startled step back. Made her feel powerful, even as she started to feel out of control. “I’m not just going to, what, _move in_ with you! I’m not going to live in this backwater town and wait out the rest of my life. I’m _Princess Zelda_.”

Link looked like he wanted to say ‘why not,’ but thought better of it. “Okay,” he said in a too small voice.

She swallowed and crossed her arms. “I’m _not_ staying here.”

He waited for her to continue. Her eyes darted around wildly, looking for an exit. She didn’t elaborate. The horses grazed on, unperturbed. 

“Okay. Where are we going?” 

Link’s face was carefully blank. Zelda was boiling with rage. The argument was over, she’d won, but her frustrations were still simmering inside of her. Assumptions and expectations chafed her. Unfairly, she hated him for them. Hated herself for following along. That’s all she had been doing ever since she released Calamity Ganon. She wanted to snap at him again, and this early in the day she didn’t have the wisdom to resist.

“You don’t have to follow me anymore. You’re not my knight,” she bit. 

She was expecting his face to grow stony, his jaw to tighten, and perhaps a harsh word in a clipped tone. Instead, she saw his face drop into a loose expression of hurt.

She watched him swallow and glance away from her for a moment. His hands were fidgeting with something on his belt. “I… I _want_ to come with you. I won’t if you…”

Her anger drained out and left her feeling cold. Cruel. “I’m sorry.” Her tone was too flat. She started to reach for his hand, but thought better of it. 

She could see him forgive her almost immediately. The part of Zelda that picked at scabs and showed her experiments to her father wanted her to push. To really upset Link. To make him look at her with disappointment and anger and then dismiss her. Make him leave. A bigger part of her wanted to cling to his sleeve and cry and beg for forgiveness. 

Zelda swallowed loudly and looked out at the grass. She could feel Link watching her. Studying her. Her mind swirled with too many thoughts. Off script. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

“We should go. Today. I need to survey Hyrule. Reassess our alliances with our vassals, rearrange any lapsed trade agreements…”

Link always rolled with the punches. She could almost see in his eyes as he planned and assessed. “Zora’s Domain is the closest. It’s a day or two north.” He pointed vaguely past Mount Lanayru. “We could go there first.”

Zelda repressed a shiver. She quickly tried to think of what was in the opposite direction of that fucking mountain. “No. No, we’ll go to the Gerudo first. We just saw Sidon, we don’t need to go there. He already technically affirmed their allegiance.”

He brightened slightly at the name. He nodded affirmatively.

Good. Good. She didn’t want to spend any longer in this place. If she wanted to bury her head in the sand, she would have stayed at the ruins of her castle. She was going to live.

“Before we go-” 

Link halted midstep.

“I need a weapon. We’re going to be traveling across Hyrule, and I want to be prepared. And don’t you dare say I don’t need it because you’re here.”

He shrugged amicably. “I wouldn't dream of it. It's good to be prepared.” He held out the slate. “Take whatever you need.”

She took it gingerly and turned it on. She was no stranger to the slate’s many features, but it looked like Link had somehow enhanced it. There was a shocking amount of space in its inventory, and every category of item was filled to the brim. She flipped through it quickly to get a gauge before skipping back to the weapons page. 

She hesitated over the selection of bows. She was proficient in them, but it seemed… stereotypical for a Zelda to jump to archery. She moved on to the melee weapons, her eye catching on one in particular. She was no Link, but she could hold her own with a variety of weapons. And this was all about forging her own path. She selected a bokoblin club made of hewn dragonbone and let it materialize in her hands. She gave it a few practice swings before sheathing it on her hip. The weight felt good. 

She handed the slate back to Link. “Can I ask a question?”

“Mhm,” he hummed as he reattached the slate to his hip.

“Why is the Master Sword stored away? Shouldn’t that be like-” She waved her hand in the air. “-your main weapon? It’s the Master Sword.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Link started towards the horses. Zelda followed at his side. “It’s not my best weapon.”

Zelda chewed on that one all the way to the horses. Spinch excitedly nuzzled into her hands. Link pushed Magatha’s forelock out of her face when she leaned down to nose him. 

“It’s… How in the world- It’s the Master Sword!” Link gave her a confused look as she threw her hands in the air. “It’s the best weapon! Period. What are you talking about.”

“No.” He started to lead the horses back to the stable.

Zelda let out an incoherent noise. “Yes! It’s the sword of evil’s bane! You fight monsters. Explain.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that good.” Link led the horses right outside the ramshackle stable. He stepped inside and came out with Magatha’s saddle in his hands. He calmly tacked the gentle giant with careful precision. “I’ve found plenty of stronger weapons. I mean, it's nice that it doesn’t break, and the energy bursts are kinda cool, but it's just not that great of a sword. Can’t use it too long.”

She made a disbelieving noise and a wild gesture.

He shook his head as he tightened the girth. “I think it runs out of energy or something? After a couple swings it stops being good as a weapon. Have to wait like half a day for it to recharge.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Heroes through the ages have used it their whole lives without even dulling the edge. There are no-! Historically, yes, the sword’s ability to shoot beams is situational, but the blade itself doesn’t have any restrictions.”

“It does for me,” Link said simply.

She shook her head again disbelievingly. 

He finished getting Magatha situated and led her away from the stable. He pulled out the slate. “Here, if it makes you feel better, I’ll keep the sword out.” He materialized the Master Sword and carefully hung the sheath from Magatha’s saddle. “Now I can reach it even if I drop the slate.”

Zelda tried not to stare at the blade. She didn’t think about the last time she saw it. “ _Thank_ you. You’re gonna be thanking me when you need to have the bane of evil on hand.”

Link smiled at her. She smiled back without overthinking it.

“We good?” 

Zelda’s mind stuttered as she tried to figure out how she had upset him again, before realizing what he meant. “Mm? Oh, yes, we should be good to go. Burning daylight and all that.” That was a bit of a stretch. It was still well before noon. There was still dew on the grass.

Link swung up on Magatha smoothly. She turned to Spinch, but hesitated. He looked down at her with a confused expression. 

“One… moment.” She turned and fled into the house. The door slammed behind her with a clattering echo. The house was still exactly the same, down to the specks of dust dancing in the light. She dashed past the too clean table to the display wall. She tore her Bow of Light from the wall.

She cradled it in her hands. It shone, gold and dazzling, in the dim light. She could feel a faint vibration of magic under her fingertips. It was hers, and she wasn’t going to leave it here to be a set piece for a tomb. 

She stepped back outside and carefully shut the door behind her. She scrambled up onto Spinch’s bare back and sat primly. This was far easier with pants and boots, but slightly more complicated with a club and a bow strapped to her and throwing off her balance. 

Link nodded at her and clicked at Magatha. They started moving. Out through Hateno and to the east. Zelda did not look back. She relaxed as that mountain eased further and further away.

* * *

They had been riding for hours. At a brisk canter, the miles were sliding away. Hateno was far behind them, and they could see the Dueling Peaks start to peek over the rolling hills. The further they went, Zelda’s white knuckle grip on Spinch’s mane got looser. Link, on the other hand, was getting more and more tense.

Abruptly, Magatha dropped from a canter to a trot. Link’s face was pinched and tight. Worried, Zelda slowed as well.

“...can I ask you something?” 

“You may?” She quirked an eyebrow at him. He didn’t look at her. 

“What do you think of me? Since I’m not ‘your knight.’” Link asked. His tone was detached.

He was just trying to get his feelings hurt by poking at her today. “Question for question?” she offered. 

“Sure. Mine first, though.”

Zelda chewed on her lip. 

What _did_ she think of him? This overly familiar stranger. “You- It’s hard to think about. You’re not my knight, not really. But you’re all that I have left of him. I try not to think about it.”

Link’s jaw tensed. “That must be real hard. For you.”

She missed the insinuation, lost in her own thoughts. “It feels rather cold to be sad about him, but it's true. He’s gone. He died trying to save me from guardians. And now you’re here. I don’t really know you, honestly. What do you think? About all this?”

“What I think?” He’s mad, but his eyes are still locked on her like a hunter. “I think that you’ve been. Rude. I’ve been nothing but kind to you, I let you into my home, and all you do is throw my memory loss into. My face.”

“I’m not trying-”

“I may or may not be your knight. But. We were friends. And I was- I don’t even care about who I was before. I’m me now, and I want to be your friend.” His shoulders straightened, and he burned with an inner fire. “I deserve that. And so do you.”

Zelda stared. Her mind was whirling. “So, what now? Do we start over? ‘Hi, my name’s Zelda?’”

His mouth twitched up in a sardonic smile. “Hi, Zelda, nice to meet you. I’m Link. I like horses.”

“I… also like horses.” She tried not to feel like she was being made fun of. It didn’t quite work, but at least his teasing was well intentioned. 

Their horses had slowed to a walk sometime during their argument. They hadn’t noticed. Zelda squeezed her heels to get them up to a trot. Link matched her pace.

“Your turn. You get to ask a question now.”

She chewed on her thoughts for a minute. If they were laying all their cards on the table… “How much do you remember? Truly.”

Link frowned at her, but then his eyes turned distant. “Truthfully, not much. A couple memories here and there, mostly of you and me and the Champions, and most of the day of the Calamity, but nothing before the ceremony. The knighting ceremony?”

Zelda cut in to correct before she could stop herself. “Ordaining you as the chosen hero. Appointing you as the true bearer of the Master Sword.”

“Yeah. That’s my earliest.” His voice was soft, but not overly mournful.

She felt a stone drop in her stomach. “Nothing before that?”

He shook his head.

Goddesses. Nothing before the ceremony. That was when they were 15? 16? And they were both 17 now. His whole life, gone up in flames. She could hardly imagine. 

Link clicked his tongue thoughtfully and pulled her out of her thoughts. “What about you? What do you remember from the last hundred years?” He gestured in the air. “With Ganon.”

“Oh.” She ran her fingers through Spinch’s mane to give her hands something to do. “Well. How much do you know about the Triforce of Wisdom? Or, I suppose, the Triforce in general.”

Link blinked at her. “I don’t know anything about anything,” he joked. “I know I have one. Courage.”

“And I have Wisdom. Ganon has Power. They are- Ganon has the power, which he uses for evil. You have the courage to fight him. And I have the wisdom to bind or thwart him so that you can defeat him. Every iteration of the three wielders of the Triforce is different, of course, and presents their powers in a different way. For example, this Ganon using his power to control the guardians and turn himself into that monster, Calamity Ganon. Presumably that’s how he transformed into a-” She waved one hand. “-dragonic magical beast. It’s been quite a while since an iteration of Ganon has turned into a monster, actually, which is quite interesting…”

Link hummed with interest. 

“Sorry, got a bit off track. Well, a Zelda’s power is to trap Ganon. So, I used my power to- Neither one of us alone can defeat Ganon. It takes two pieces of the Triforce to defeat another. We’re intended to be evenly matched.” She rolled her eyes. “Allegedly. Don’t get me started. We don’t have time. When you… fell, and I put you in the Shrine of Resurrection, I didn’t know how much time it would take.” Or if it would work. “So I strove to bind Calamity Ganon as best I could, so that it could not continue to rampage. I used the Triforce, my piece of it, to essentially construct a...hm. I guess you could call it a sphere of magic. I trapped myself and Calamity Ganon within it as tightly as I could. And with all of my power behind it, which is apparently quite a lot. The magic was able to stop the force of time and space itself. The barrier was still permeable by sufficient magical force, which is how I was still able to communicate with you. And Calamity Ganon was still able to exert his force, especially during...”

“The blood moons.”

“Precisely! As I was outside of time, it was… difficult to tell how long it had been. I was… It felt like I had been in there for no time at all, but it also felt like I was maintaining that spell for a hundred years. It’s… hard to explain. Rather… nightmarish.” Zelda could almost feel Calamity Ganon’s oppressive presence at the memory. The darkness, the danger, that claustrophobic horror.

Link looked up thoughtfully. The Dueling Peaks were getting closer and closer, but still distant. Zelda decided to take the initiative and change the subject. It was her turn to ask again. 

“How long has it been since you... woke up?”

“From the shrine?” He rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms. “Only a couple months. Not sure. Maybe- Wait, I saw five blood moons! So, five months.”

Zelda’s eyebrows knitted in confusion. “They’re not- You know that blood moons aren’t monthly right? They’re not, like, full moons? It’s a whole different cycle. Part of the magic system, not the lunar.”

He looked confounded. “What?” He blinked. “What.”

“Did you think that the blood moon was monthly?”

“...I don’t have to answer that. It’s my turn. I get to ask my question now.”

Zelda chuckled.

“Champions?”

Zelda laughed again. “Is that your full question? ‘Champions?’”

He flushed. “I meant. Tell me about them. Please.”

She twisted her hands into Spinch’s mane. “What can I say about them? They were… family. To both of us. They were so wonderful. So kind and caring… They were chosen based on their prowess for battle, but they became so much more than warriors. I miss them. Sometimes I wish- Dealing with everything after the Calamity would be so much easier with them. I wish you remembered them.”

“I have some memories of them. And their-” Link paused and visibly searched for the words. “Their spirits were still within the Divine Beasts. I freed them when I activated them. Their spirits stayed around to operate them. Now that Calamity Ganon is gone, they should be. Free. But I did meet them.”

Zelda looked away from his face. She focused on the rolling hills beside them. The horses trotted on, blissfully unaware of the grief storming within her. Next topic, something lighter.

“So… What’s up between you and Sidon?” She turned back to him and raised an eyebrow at him. 

Link looked perfectly baffled. He tilted his head as his mouth opened slightly.

“So?”

“He’s my friend? We fought Vah Ruta together. He’s a really great guy.”

“Really?” Zelda almost wanted to wink, but that felt a little much. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

He was completely flabbergasted. “What?”

Zelda laughed until she was doubled over into Spinch’s neck. Link chuckled along gamely. 

They let the conversation quiet into a thoughtful silence for an hour. Zelda stewed over what she had learned. Bizarrely, Link felt more human to her after all this. Less the shape of a stoic knight from her memories and now a peer. 

Link’s cleared his throat to get her attention. She perked up and nodded for him to continue. 

“Did you- Could you tell me about my family?”

Zelda felt that remaining last shard of self protective anger melt in her heart. “Yes, of course.” She reached over to squeeze his hand briefly. The horses walked close together without complaint. “Your father was a knight of Hyrule.” She smiled sardonically. “Must have never crossed your mind to be anything but a knight. Runs in the blood. I don’t recall much about him, but he was well regarded in the castle. A good man. I don’t believe I ever met your mother. Oh!”

Link gave her a quizzical look. 

“Your mother- I just remembered something. Once, she braided flowers in your hair and you walked around the castle all day looking like a little spring korok. There were petals _everywhere_. The chamberlain had a fit! You didn’t care, not even when the other knights-in-training teased you.”

He smiled at the thought. “My parents lived in the castle?”

“That, or castle town. I’m not sure if your father was a high enough rank to ensure his place in the castle proper. I’m really not positive,” she said apologetically.

He sat forward in his seat, more excited than she’d seen since she woke up. “Did I have any siblings? Or cousins? Did I have other family members?”

She shrugged and looked away embarrassedly. “I don’t know. We didn’t- I didn’t get along with you for years, and by then I was more focused on trying to activate my powers and leading the Champions that most things just… slipped past me.” She chewed her lip. “I’m sorry.”

His expression turned neutral. It hurt to see the enthusiasm slip away. “It’s okay. I’m glad you remember anything at all. If you remember anything else, will you let me know?”

“Of course.” Then, more firmly, “of course, Link.”

He smiled, pensive and hopeful.

“Do you remember teaching me to parry?” 

Link’s lips quirked into a smile. “No. Tell me?”

“It’s a funny story, actually. I wasn’t allowed to learn any weaponry beyond a cursory amount of archery practice. Traditional for a Zelda. Just hitting still targets, no true combat training. But when you were assigned to be my knight, you followed me everywhere. I hated it. I couldn’t so much as go to the Castle Town Market without some boy trailing me like a lost puppy.” Zelda winked. She was trying to tease him, not hurt him. “But, I figured out a loophole. You couldn’t leave me, and you were still a royal knight. And royal knights needed to train. So, I stuck with you when you went to go spar. We must have been 12? 13?”

“Precocious.”

“Mhm. And I _insisted_ that I learn something, since I was there anyway. It took some pleading and demanding, but the quartermaster eventually let me get my hands on something to swing around. That opened the door to every bleeding heart knight to teach me a thing or two.”

“Including me?”

She laughed. “Oh god no. Could you imagine? You were wound so tight. Me too, of course. We put on such a front for each other. We didn’t truly get along for years. No, you were training with the captain. He was trying to teach you to parry, but instead you just kept beating him without even bothering to try. He was so frustrated! Here was this dinky little kid, showing him up in front of everyone. So he roped me in. Got me in the ring with you. You wouldn’t fight me. So I just started waving my too big wooden sword around, and you just-” She gestured into the air, pretending to swing a sword. “You just kept tapping your sword against mine.”

Link tugged on his hair thoughtfully and hummed. 

“The captain of the guard just talked us both through how to parry. It was marvelous. You looked like you were going to throw up every time you actually swung at me.” Zelda cackled.

Link looked sheepish. 

“Your turn,” she pushed. 

He was quiet for a moment longer. He was looking out at the landscape around them, rolling hills starting to give to the fields at the base of the Dueling Peaks. “I don’t remember that.”

“I know?” She was puzzled. They’d been over this. 

His eyebrows tensed with frustration. “I wish I remembered that. I wish I remembered everything.”

Zelda didn’t know what to say. Should she say sorry, again? Or say it didn’t matter? She wished she was better at comforting people. 

“I wish I could be the person you remember.”

She reached out her hand again. “You’re Link. You’re you.”

He held her hand softly. “...Thanks.”


	6. Chapter 6

They kept riding and kept swapping questions. Zelda shared story after story from their childhoods, while Link peppered in anecdotes from his travels around Hyrule. Don’t step on the flowers compared to tales of fussy tutors. Fighting monsters compared to begging the cooks for treats. Little stories to make the other laugh. By the time their stories started getting heavier, they were at a stable at the base of the Dueling Peaks. Link lent her a few rupees to register Spinch. Finally, Zelda had a set of tack for her horse. 

“My kingdom for a saddle,” she joked to the stablehand who handed it over. He did not get it.

There was something freeing about anonymity. No one knew her as their princess, and, in her new outfit, no one even suspected she wasn’t one of them. Refreshing, but isolating. 

Zelda didn’t pick back up the thread of conversation after they left the stable. It was emotionally exhausting to talk about herself like that. She could see the shape of herself in her tales, and it didn’t quite match her reflection. The Zelda in her stories was impish and fiery. That felt incomplete to the point of being disingenuous. Every anecdote of slipping past guards to visit Castle Town Market or hiding in the library from her guards was weighted by the hours of studying religious texts and working with tutors and scholars to activate her powers.

But, she supposed, that was what made them memorable stories to her. They stuck out from the repetition of her life. 

She was lost in her thoughts as they rode through the Dueling Peaks. So lost that she rode Spinch from almost a full minute before she realized Link had stopped. 

“Link?” She wheeled her horse around. Spinch snorted a bit at the maneuver.

Link had dismounted and was eyeing the cliff face with a curiously blank expression. Suddenly, he sprang at the rocks and started scrambling up them like a squirrel. Magatha watched quietly. With confidence, he jumped straight off the cliff from 30 feet up.

“Link!”

Midair, he pulled out a glider. His arms flexed as his downward momentum jerked to a crawl. He floated gently to the ground like a flower petal. Once his feet hit the dirt, he stowed the glider and held out his closed hand. 

Zelda drew closer.

His hand opened to reveal a small green mushroom. 

“Mushroom.” He smiled and tapped the slate to store it.

Zelda ran her hand through her hair as he climbed back onto his horse. Okay, alright. Kid just jumps off of stuff with no warning. Hylia’s blessing, he was…

“You’re kinda wild, did you know that?” 

Link just grinned at her as he rode past. “Yep.”

Okay! Sure. Zelda squeezed her heels and followed him through the cliffs. She shook her head in mock exasperation. 

“You could have gotten hurt, you know. You should be more careful.”

Link shrugged one shoulder playfully. “It’s fine. Paraglider can break my fall.”

“And if you don’t pull out your paraglider in time?”

Link thought for a moment. “Hurts.”

She huffed out a disbelieving laugh. He wasn’t wrong, per say. 

“Where did you get that glider, anyway? It’s rather neat. A useful tool.”

“Your dad gave it to me,” chirped Link.

Zelda tilted her head. “You  _ are  _ wild. Trusting a century old bit of linen and wood to save your life? I’d be too worried about it unraveling midair to ever use such a thing.”

He shook his head. “Oh, no, it’s not old. Your dad gave it to me when I woke up.” He squinted at the horizon. “Did I forget to mention that?”

She felt the melted and formless anger in her gut start to freeze into countless stinging points.

“He hung around the Great Plateau as a spirit. To guide me. Taught me about a lot. Explained about shrines and stuff. Even taught me how to do a little cooking. And, when I was ready, he gave me this paraglider and told me to go save you. I didn’t even know he was the king until he handed it to me and left.”

Spinch stopped moving. Zelda didn’t bother to squeeze her heels. Link wheeled around to look at her quizzically.

“He left?” Her voice was soft. Dangerous. The anger had frozen into a knife sharp point. 

He nodded slowly. 

She tightened her grip on the reins until her knuckles went white. 

It wasn’t that she wasn’t aware, on some level, that her father could have lingered as a spirit. The Champions had, bound to their Divine Beasts. And a king’s bond to his kingdom could be just as strong and meaningful. 

But. 

He hadn’t stayed around for his kingdom. (For her.) He had stayed around for  _ Link _ . He had waited for a hundred years to give the chosen hero advice and tools and considered his duty fulfilled. His ghostly responsibility over. Calamity Ganon still alive, Hyrule in ruins, and her still trapped and desperate. He had not stuck around to see the battle concluded. 

Her father, the king, King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, who she had watched turn from encouraging to stern to openly disappointed. Who had pushed her to apply herself to her prayer and away from her research into Shekah tech. Who had cancelled her studies on politics and economics in favor of more religious study, leaving her adrift and confused when dealing with anything related to the non-Triforce side of being Princess Zelda. Who had dismissed her interests and worries and grief time and time again. 

He had waited for Link. He had left her to fend for herself. 

Zelda couldn’t tell if her rage was that he hadn’t helped her like he had helped Link, or that he hadn’t stuck around to even say goodbye.

“How fuckin dare he,” she hissed. 

She pressed her heels into Spinch to continue moving. She wanted to pace, and this was the next best thing. Link followed on Magatha, a half step behind until he matched her speed. They traveled through the peaks and along the river they had met Sidon without comment. 

Zelda was pissed. She was betrayed, fuming, and irate. The injustice prickled at her neck and caught in her gritted teeth. Link, to his credit, seemed sympathetic. When she finally loosed the slow boiling rant about her father as they crossed the bridge, he lent his ear. 

She told him about her father, about the pressure of activating her powers with an inexorable countdown ticking away. The fear and guilt that she couldn’t do better and save her country. The snarling rage that the king treated her like a malfunctioning tool rather than a daughter. 

This was the other half of her stories about herself. This was the negative space that her cute anecdotes painted around. Every tale of sneaking into the library after hours and trying to stifle her nervous giggles was backed by the fact that she was sneaking in to filch books about topics that didn’t relate to her powers. Every illicit trip to buy sweets in the market was bracketed by hours of quiet desperate prayer. 

Link listened to her speak. He let her talk until her voice was hoarse. 

* * *

Zelda was still mad by the time they stopped and set up camp, but the rage had settled into a simmering despair that pulled her down. She untacked Spinch slowly. The horse was skittish at the sight of her saddle, still unused to the feeling. Zelda stroked her soft nose. 

“Good job, sweetheart,” she mumbled to the horse. 

She looked around for Link. Magatha was grazing and her tack was in a heap by the tiny fire. It took a moment for Zelda to spot Link. He was standing a little bit away in a copse of trees. He held the Master Sword loosely with one hand and used his free hand to shade his eyes as he looked up. Before she could call out a question for him, he raised his sword and started chopping at a good sized tree. With the sword of evil’s bane, he felled it quickly. Within minutes, he portioned it into neat firewood and stored it in the slate.

Zelda was alarmed to see a sacred relic being used as a hatchet, but a larger part of her was chuffed at the incongruity. Like putting a hat on a dog. 

He walked back to camp and reattached the sword to Magatha’s saddle. He winked at her impishly.

They had a quiet dinner over the campfire. The cool evening air was still and sweet. A nice moment to tuck away into her memories. 

Too soon, she curled up in her blanket and tried to will herself asleep. She watched Link bustle around, tidying this and that, moving their discarded gear into messy heaps, and feeding a few twigs into the fire. She watched him sit down and stare at the fire. She looked at it, too. 

She felt disconnected. Her eyes were drawn to the leaping flames, and her mind was drawn to her father. Her anger had traveled its course, leaving smoke and ash in its wake. Now she just had a heavy weight in her chest and behind her eyes. 

She remembered before the guilt and shame. Her father had taken her to a special part of the palace. She couldn’t have been older than seven at the time. He took her to a quiet wing of the palace. It was a long hall, full of stained glass and smooth marble. In every window was a woman who almost looked like her, but regal and serene. Countless Zeldas, all wise and noble in their procession through history. 

Her father had told her all about them that day. He had pointed to each in turn, telling her of their accomplishments. Wisdom incarnate who held back against darkness. And he told her that she was the next Zelda. She was the next link in a beautiful chain. She was destined to be important and special and powerful. She was young enough that it didn’t sound like a burden, a horror, a rut of expectation in time, and-

He was  _ so  _ proud of her. And she was so excited to grow into what he told her she’d be.

Zelda buried her head into her scratchy blanket. Suddenly, there was pressure against her back. She uncurled just enough to look while murmuring in sleepy confusion. 

It was Link, dragging his blanket over next to her. He gave her a drowsy blink. He tucked himself into his blanket and wiggled so they were back to back. She could feel his body heat seep through the layers between them. 

Link mumbled a wordless questioning noise that Zelda assumed meant ‘is this okay?’ She hummed in assent.

With him at her back, she was able to drift into sleep. She didn’t dream.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the last chapter in this arc. taking a small break to work on my outline so next chapter will be in two weeks!

Zelda woke up to the feeling of Link rolling away. Her side immediately started cooling in the absence of his body heat. She whined sleepily and curled further into her warm blanket. The morning sun was bright on her eyelids, but she ignored it. 

She also ignored the sounds of him packing up camp and preparing the horses. She kept her eyes shut and her face pressed into the blanket until she felt a soft tap on her side. It felt like the toe of a boot, which seemed a bit overdramatic. 

Link chuckled warmly. “Sleepyhead.”

Zelda groaned and sat up. “Your insults are so childish.”

He beamed at her before sticking his tongue out. She stuck her tongue out back. She broke out into giggles, with him following not long after. They were still lightly chuckling as they ate a quick breakfast and saddled up to start the day. 

Zelda started to actually  _ whistle _ as they rode. Perhaps her nightmares had been weighing on her more than she had assumed. Not having to untangle imagery of destruction and guilt really left her with much more time on her hands.

It felt like they were making good time, travel wise. Zelda had requested to look at the map, and, after shaking off the nervous static in her hands, she had commandeered the slate for the morning as they rode. She wasn’t sure if the shock had worn off or if having a destination to plan for made it easier to take in. She traced their intended path with her eyes. They were in southern Hyrule Field heading west. They just had to follow the road that skirted around the Great Plateau and they’d be funneled right into the canyon trail to get to the Gerudo Desert. At their current pace, it was only two or three days away. 

She talked as she studied, keeping Link up to date on her plan. He chimed in occasionally with advice on which hills could be used as shortcuts and which were cliffs that were impassable by horse. She handed back the slate before noon. It wasn’t much, but she felt productive and cheerful.

Link attached the slate back to his hip. “We might need to resupply soon.” Link shrugged one shoulder meekly. “I was kinda… well. I thought we would be in Hateno longer. Didn’t get the chance to buy some ingredients. Maybe get you a bedroll or something.”

Zelda tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm… There’s no major settlements between here and Gerudo Town. We could try to catch some traveling traders, see if they have anything worthwhile.”

He hummed. “Yeah, that would work. Or I could warp to a town next time we see a shrine.”

Zelda tilted her head and stared at him. “Warp? How would you- Oh! The slate! Yes, the Sheikah network is active now. I never could get it to turn on, so that side of the tech was purely hypothetical. You can warp? Tell me about it.”

“It's not as cool as you would think. It only takes one person, and it can only go to active shrines or towers. So if I used it now, I’d leave you and the horses, and I wouldn’t be able to come right back. Closest I could get is a shrine in the region.” He looked nervous. “Honestly, I’d rather not split up without good reason. Unless the other person is just waiting at a shrine, it would be hard to plan.”

Zelda’s mind whirled with the possibilities. “Fascinating… I want to test it myself, maybe tinker with the slate itself. If we could improve its capabilities, we could cut travel times down to nothing! Presumably, the bottleneck in power is the slate itself, considering that the shrine network collects and transfers magic from all over Hyrule. Like how a jar may be technically big enough to hold a cucco, but the mouth of it is too small to fit it. Though, it could be that the- the material moved through a warp has an upper limit, even if the magic is technically able to transfer it. A certain threshold that the magic can not unravel further.”

Link hummed thoughtfully. “Even if you could make it teleport both of us and the horses, I’m not sure you should. The platform you teleport to for shrines is rather small, and the towers are way high up in the air. I don’t think I’d want magic to knit me back smooshed together with Magatha or trap her hundreds of feet in the air.”

Zelda laughed and patted Spinch’s neck. “We’d need a horse sized paraglider.”

Link laughed, doubled over into Magatha’s thick mane. 

* * *

They traveled until the sun was just starting to set. The rolling fields were just gorgeous in the summer air, and in the dimming light Zelda could ignore the rubble and ruins by the road that suggested that this place was once an outpost of some kind. Hyrule Field was littered with such ruins, and every day they tugged at her heart less. 

Link swung down off of Magatha and quickly circled to her head to remove her bridle. Zelda leapt to the ground and stretched her back. Beside her, Spinch stiffened and jerked her head to look at something in the darkness. Instinctively, Zelda turned too and peered into the darkness.

She saw just a tiny flash of light reflecting off of something metallic before they were upon them. A troop of bokoblins leaping out of the darkness with squawks and whoops. Six or seven silver monsters wielding clubs and cruel blades. Enough powerful monsters to trouble an entire unit of guards.

She didn’t even have time to call out a warning before Link leapt forward to meet them. He drew a greatsword out of the slate instantly and swung wide. He turned the momentum of his swing into a diving roll that carried him away from Zelda and the horses and into the midst of the monsters. 

Link was in his element. It was like a deadly dance. Dodging and leaping between bokoblins, effortlessly juggling their blows and sweeping in to strike in between their attacks. Zelda could hardly keep her eyes on him between all the monsters. He killed one quickly, but the monsters didn’t hesitate to step over it and keep the pressure up. He kept all eyes on him, and not a single monster had the time to turn to attack her.

She hung back and let him work. She tried not to twist her hands in anxiety. The horses, still half tacked, stood at her back. Spinch was nervous and was starting to stomp her hooves and back away. Magatha was steady. She had seen Link fight enough to not worry. Zelda half wished she felt as secure. 

Link dipped out of sight behind the crowd of bokoblins. Zelda waited for just a breath before she caught sight of him on the ground. He was half curled in the dirt with his weapon knocked a few feet away from his hands. The bokoblins crushed forward, trying to take advantage. There were too many of them. Somehow, she was surprised he didn’t scream for help.

Zelda turned to Spinch and grabbed her dragonbone club. Spinch stomped and danced at her quick movements. She left the bow. She’d never get off a single shot with this many monsters this close. 

She hefted the heavy club two-handed and charged towards the monsters with a yell. She smashed her club down on the head of the closest bokoblin, a silver fellow whose club was already red with Link’s blood. 

Her club exploded into a hundred shards of bone and wood. 

The bokoblin she had hit dropped like a stone. The other five silver bokoblins turned away from Link’s prone body to focus on her. 

Weaponless, she swore. “Fuck.”

She scrambled backwards. They leapt after her with wild eyes and howling snarls. Her bow, her bow, it was magic, maybe she could just beat them with the bow itself-

She couldn’t take her eyes off of them for a second. They lunged after her, just finger lengths away from thrashing her with clubs and blades. She ran backwards into the wall of a horse’s body and reached out blindly, wildly for anything-

Her hand clenched around something thrumming with magic. With a wordless yell, she swung out at the crushing mass of attacking monsters. 

The back of her right hand lit up with an almost blinding golden light. The Master Sword in her hand lit up as well, throwing the monsters’ faces in sharp relief for the brief instant before the sword sliced into the crowd. There was a blast of light and a ringing sound on impact that launched every monster head over heels. They flipped and skidded in the dirt, one far enough away that it almost slid into Link’s prone form. He raised his head, dazed and confused.

Link’s mouth was slack with surprise as he stared at her from the ground. Zelda let out a slightly hysterical laugh. Her heart was pounding and her blood was singing. Her hand and the sword were still glowing, and the bokoblins quickly started to rally and stand back up. She leapt forward and swung down into the closest monster. Golden magic exploded out once again, toppling the monsters she wasn’t looking at and defeating the one she hit. 

She laughed again, breathless and jubilant. She darted to the next bokoblin, and the next, and the next. She felt unstoppable and powerful. She made quick work of the monsters. That thrum of the Triforce sung in her, ringing and blinding with every hit. By the time the last bokoblin fell, she was still glowing.

She turned to Link with wide eyes. He was still on the ground, with his face flushed and his mouth open. He didn’t look too hurt, maybe just a bit rattled. 

“Are you alright?” She couldn’t hide the adrenaline in her voice, but her concern shone through. 

He blinked at her twice, then nodded. His mouth was slowly starting to twist into disbelieving delight.

She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and looked down at the sword. The blade of it was radiant and golden, but the light was starting to slowly fade. The grip glimmered under her hand. Her hand was still golden, too. The Triforce on her right hand was bright, just like she remembered from defending Link from those guardians a century ago. 

Squinting through the light, she looked closer at the symbol. Her eyes immediately looked to the left triangle, Wisdom. It was dark, just as dark as Power. 

In shock, her gaze went from her hand to her chest. Her forest green armor that she had dyed herself. Then her eyes went to her horse. Her bay horse that shone ever so slightly red in the dying light. To the Master Sword, bright and powerful, humming in her grip. She looked back at the Triforce.

Courage shone on her hand and in her racing heart. 

Her voice was loud in the stunned silence. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3c


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to arc 2: '*carly rae jepson voice* a sword!' thank you guys so so much for all of your wonderful comments and your patience while i took a week off :3c we're back to thursday updates from now on babyyyyy lets gooooooo

Her smile was equal parts wild and ecstatic. The ring of magic felt so  _ right. _ She wanted nothing more than for this insane, incredible moment to last forever. But her grip on that feeling was fading. Desperately, she tried to cling to it for as long as she could, concentrating to keep the magic stable, but whatever she was doing wasn’t enough or right or  _ something. _ The excitement was replaced with dread as it slipped away. 

The sword in her hand and the Triforce faded ever so slowly into darkness. As the light faded, Zelda became aware of her pounding heart and the aching tension in her muscles. She flexed her free hand. The impossibility of it all made her normally quick thoughts whirlwind into pure noise. And above it all: Courage. Courage? Courage! 

Link sidled up to her carefully, like he was approaching an unfamiliar horse. His arm was around his ribs, and he winced as he picked his way to her. 

“Oh, Link-” She started towards him. She kept the Master Sword in her hand, and used her free hand to cup his shoulder gently. “Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?”

He opened his mouth slightly, but no sound came out. He shook his head slightly, but more in bewilderment than anything else. 

“Right, right. Okay.” Zelda was hardly listening to herself. She gently turned Link to try to get a look at his injuries. “Potions. Do you have any healing potions? Or we can- Yes, a good meal will fix you right up. You’ll be right as rain! And then we’ll-” She glanced at the sword. “-we’ll figure it out. We’ll… Yes, okay. Yeah.”

He looked at her with wide eyes and a slight blush. She met his gaze for too long. The moment stretched on. She wondered what she looked like. Did she look different now? She felt different.

Link shrugged off her hand and gestured at the horses. They were still saddled and Spinch was stomping her hooves and flaring her nostrils in mild panic. 

“Right. Yes. I’ll take care of the horses. We need- Hylia’s blessing, we still need to set up camp. Ha. Okay, do you want to-?”

Link nodded without hearing the rest of her question. 

With that, Zelda turned on her heel and headed to the horses. Magatha, sweet and implacable, swung her head around to look at her. The empty sheath on her saddle drew Zelda’s attention like a magnet. The thought of putting the sword back made her clench her jaw. She ignored it willfully. Instead, she slung the sword onto her back beneath her cloak. With her hands free, she quickly unsaddled Magatha. Her hands were still shaking, but she attributed it to adrenaline. 

Spinch was next. She was nervous, but a few gentle words and firm pats calmed her. Zelda untacked her and thanked her quietly for her (ha!) bravery. An untested horse in a combat scenario was always a wildcard, but Spinch hadn’t galloped away from the battle or drawn undue attention to herself. A good sign. A good horse.

When Zelda turned away from the horses, Link had already formed a messy pile of firewood and had a low fire sputtering. The low light messed with her night vision, turning the bodies of the bokoblins into low dark shapes and throwing Link into silhouette. He was facing the fire, unmoving. She crept closer. It was so quiet. She couldn’t even hear insect noise in the darkness. It was like the whole world was holding its breath.

She stopped beside Link. The fire flickered and danced. Her mind raced. She stole a glance at his hand. His Triforce was dark. She stared at the left triangle. Wisdom. He had to have it, right? Unless they had missed something enormous, then he must have Wisdom. They had defeated Calamity Ganon, and that beast’s magic had tasted of Power, rotting Malice that polluted and controlled. She felt a shiver run through her.

She raised her own hand. Link followed its movement with his own eyes. The Triforce was still dark. Inactive. Dormant. How long had she-? Would things have been different if she had known? 

Link reached out and held her hand in both of his. He traced his thumb over the Triforce and gave her a meaningful look. 

“I-” What could she say? How could she explain? She shut her mouth with a click.

He tilted his head at her. His eyes were unreadable. 

“W-we should eat. It’ll help heal you.” 

He nodded and tapped the slate at his hip. Link retrieved two charred bass on sticks and handed her one. He sat heavily onto the ground and started gnawing on his meal slowly. She sunk down onto her heels and followed suit. It was slightly cool, presumably from being stored in the slate for too long.

Link finished first, surprisingly, and flicked his stick into the fire like a miniature javelin. He rubbed his hands together and stared into the fire thoughtfully. The food had brought more life into his eyes, but he was clearly exhausted. 

Zelda, on the other hand, was currently seesawing between wild joy and gut wrenching dread. The wonderfully complete feeling of the Master Sword in her hand. She had taken on those bokoblins so easily. Her power hadn’t disappeared after the defeat of Ganon. She felt so strong and capable. But that awful feeling of it slipping away. And the realization that everything she thought she knew was wrong. She was wrong. 

She chewed her fish till it tasted like nothing. She grimaced and flicked her stick carelessly into the fire and watched it crackle and consume.

“I can’t believe…” She swallowed. “Courage! How could that even-? It’s-it’s unprecedented! A Zelda wielding Courage.”

“Is it... that surprising?” 

She tried not to be patronizing, but her nerves and excitement were starting to get the better of her. “It's  _ beyond  _ surprising. It’s like finding out that a ruto could breath water. It’s like finding a stalfos writing poetry.” It’s like finding out that the role that you had struggled with all your life was wrong and you’d never known why. “Did you have any idea?”

Link shrugged helplessly. “I mean, I can come up with some stuff in retrospect, but. Uh. I’m just as blindsided as you.”

She ran her fingers through her hair and tugged just a bit. “Nayru save us. A princess of Courage. And a hero of Wisdom! It’s-” She spluttered as she searched for the right word.

“Unprecedented?” He smiled at her, faintly teasing. His face was so tense.

She tried to smile disarmingly at him, but his eyes stayed worried. “Are you feeling alright?”

He nodded and looked away. He gazed past the fire and into the night. In the dark, she could just barely make out the shapes of the slain bokoblins starting to disintegrate into pure magic with a crackling hiss. The horses were shuffling and breathing nearby. Insects were starting to chirp and chitter at each other. 

“So… If I can use the Master Sword, does that make  _ me  _ Link?” She meant it as a joke, an attempt to relieve tension, but Link looked thoughtful. Almost like he’s seriously considering it.

“You did defeat Ganon. And you’re brave.” He grinned awkwardly. “And you can use the sword better than me.”

Zelda’s heart did something strange in her chest. She rubbed her fingers on her green tunic. A hero’s green outfit. How had she not noticed? She had picked the color herself. “We defeated Ganon. Together.” 

He twisted his mouth into an odd expression. 

“But-? I was able to summon the Bow of Light! And I bound Ganon with-” She waved her right hand. “Links don’t do that. Links can’t.”

He tilted his head and turned back to the fire. “And I wielded the sword. And defeated Ganon.”

She snapped her fingers. “Yes! It’s clearly not as simple as a clean swap. We fulfilled our roles successfully as Link and Zelda. Perhaps there’s something inherent to our roles rather than our piece of the Triforce? We’ll have to investigate further…”

“Tomorrow, though,” Link wheezed. “I’m not going to be running around shooting laser beams or whatever til my ribs stop hurting.”

She bit her lip to keep herself from asking if he felt he could channel Wisdom in beam form and forced herself to restrain her curiosity. The poor man was wincing in the firelight from his wounds. She could interrogate him when he didn’t look like he was seconds away from passing out. He returned her gaze steadily.

Zelda was thoughtful, but her tone was light. “Well, if I’m Link, does that make you Zelda?”

“I’m not Zelda,” he said, almost as if he was trying to reassure her. “Zelda is a princess, and has royal blood, and always knows what to do.”

Zelda tilted her head at him appraisingly. “And she’s a girl.”

Link looked away thoughtfully. “Yeah.” His tone was distant. 

She tilted her head the other way. Huh. Zelda added ‘whatever sort of reaction that was’ to her pile of questions that today stirred up. The mental image of a heap of papers with things like ‘I accidentally dressed myself like a classical Link’ and ‘what does Courage even do’ made her smile privately. Was everyday in this crazy future going to be like this? She was starting to miss when she thought getting hugged by a crown prince was the weirdest thing this future held.

He turned back to her with intense focus in his eyes. “Do you want to be Link? Seriously.”

Zelda started to respond, but it caught in her throat. She took a moment to imagine it. She could be Link. They could switch their clothes. By the time they hit any sort of major civilization, no one would be the wiser. She would be Link, the chosen hero. No more princess nonsense. Just her and the Master Sword. They could get away with it. It would be the perfect cover. She thought about her fervent jealousy of Link as a child. Her desire to be just like him. Someone her father could look on fondly. She had wanted so  _ badly _ to have what he had as she knelt and prayed for years on end. 

“No. I don’t want to be Link. I’m Zelda.” She looked at her hand again. “I am Zelda, and I have Courage.” She pulled her shoulders back, sitting up straighter. “I’m Zelda, and  _ I _ have Courage.”

“I’m Link,” he replied with a dawning smile. It was an odd echo of his insistence of being Link when she was needling him about being her knight. That felt so long ago now.

She smiled and nudged her shoulders into his. He leaned his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. 

She let him rest for a few minutes before she forced him to sleep off his injuries. He rolled out his bedroll and climbed in with languid motions. He watched her with soft eyes as she wordlessly set up her blanket next to him. She carefully unstrapped the Master Sword from her back and stuck it into the ground next to them.

Just in case.


	9. Chapter 9

Zelda dreamt of nothing but noise and motion. She woke up slowly, peeling her eyes open to squint up at the sun. She freed one hand from her cocoon of blankets just enough to rub at the drool on her face. Gross.

“Did you let me sleep til noon?” she croaked.

Link, awake and petting the horses, gave them a final pat before trotting back to her. He stood over her with a teasing smile. “You looked so peaceful.”

“Uuuugh,” she groaned dramatically. She grabbed Link’s outstretched hand and hauled herself to her feet, letting her blanket fall to the dirt in a heap. “You should have- We gotta.” She interrupted herself with a yawn. “We gotta figure out the. The triangles.”

Link’s smile was mischievous. “Triangles?”

She lightly slugged him in the arm. The momentum carried her closer to him, and she casually rested her cheek on Link’s shoulder. Closing her eyes couldn’t hurt. “You know what I mean. Sword.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “Sword.”

She groaned and rubbed her face on his tunic. Scratchy. Too scratchy. She pulled away and stretched. “We gotta… My power. We gotta try to see if we can make it happen again. And the sword! I wonder if that blast happens every time I hit something or if it's more context specific. Maybe it only works on monsters? I’ve held the sword before, and it never did that, so there must be some sort of activation criteria…” 

Link turned away from her and grabbed something from the banked fire. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. Their little camp was still set up. Made sense. They could take a day to figure this out. It wasn’t like they were on a set schedule. Nothing to be late for. 

Link pressed a warm bowl into her hands with a smile. She set to it without bothering to sit down. The omelette was spicy and filling, but she hardly noticed it. Her eyes darted around as she thought and planned. 

Her eyes eventually settled on the sword. It was still sunk into the dirt where she had stabbed it, gleaming in the light. It was splattered with dried purple stains, but otherwise looked the same as it always had. She itched to grab it and give it another swing. 

Link wandered back to the horses as she finished eating. Her eyes tracked him as he greeted Spinch and then Magatha. He walked to the loose heap of saddles on the ground beside the horses. Squatting in the dirt, he untied the sword’s sheath off of Magatha’s saddle carefully. He held it gently as he stood, like it was fragile. Which was silly, really. 

He didn’t make eye contact as he turned and started walking towards the sword. Link pulled the Master Sword from the ground and slowly sheathed it. His face was unreadable. Zelda felt her throat go dry and her ears droop. She had thought- assumed, really, that he would- Well. It was his sword. They had had a whole ceremony about it. Her ears pulled back. She had  _ insisted _ on that ceremony. And he remembered it. One of the only things he could remember.

He balanced the sheathed sword in both hands. His gaze flicked to her. After just a moment of hesitation, he strolled over to her. He held eye contact before his eyes darted down. He stared a bit too intently before he held the sword out. She received it with gentle hands. The sheath was intricate leatherworking and felt fascinating under her fingertips. He glanced up to meet her eyes before his attention flicked downward again.

“Your hip is probably the best place for the sheath. That way it won’t get caught up in your cloak.”

Zelda’s heart fluttered. She carefully attached the sheath to her belt. The weight felt… new. It would take some time to get used to. She looked down at her former knight with soft eyes. There was a lot she was getting used to, but that didn’t make it bad.

“Thank you.”

He smiled warmly. 

Selfishly, she was glad it was him. That he was here with her. Figuring all this out would be a nightmare without his steady presence and his kindness. 

His smile turned a bit impish. “Can I take the bow?”

She nodded quickly. “Of course! That will make us even. At least in terms of-” She flicked her hand dismissively. “-sacred weaponry. Unless you have some religious artifacts hidden away in that slate.”

He shrugged noncommittally and smirked. “I mostly just have food and outfits, but feel free to check for anything that might be secretly important.”

She unsheathed the sword in one smooth motion. There was a subtle and satisfying metallic ring. “I wouldn’t put it past you. Secretly having the Lens of Truth or something stashed away and not knowing.” She gave a few cautious swings in the air. The sword didn’t glow. Disappointing, but not unexpected. 

Link frowned at the blade. “Hm. How did you do that last night?”

Zelda held the sword in both hands and gave him a rakish grin. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

* * *

Zelda set to practicing with the Master Sword. Well, that was inaccurate. She set to  _ testing _ . Initially, her interests lay in reactivating that glowing magic that blasted those monsters, but she wasn’t able to get even a spark. The sword, no matter how she held it or concentrated, lay inert in her grip. She theorized three options: it activated only against monsters, it activated only in the defense of another person, or it required some resource or headspace that she had last night and didn’t have currently. As two of those theories required her to throw herself into danger, she focused on the third. 

Focused was a strong word. She was focused on testing her prowess on a nearby tree. The other night, Link had used the blade to fell trees for firewood. If she recalled correctly, it had taken multiple swings to chop a tree down. In her hands, the same could be accomplished in just one clean swipe. It wasn’t science, however, without repeated trials. Which was her explanation for why she was cackling wildly and reducing the tree into a pile of splinters. 

Link had disappeared somewhere, presumably to do his own tests. Zelda hoped he was having better luck with his piece of the Triforce. 

He reappeared late afternoon. He gave her a sunny wave as he trotted up to their camp. He looked cheerful and relaxed, in direct contrast to Zelda’s sweat and shaking arms. Her experiments had proven two of her hypotheses true: it was extremely fun to use the Master Sword, and praying had not given her the stamina and muscle memory to wield it for long. Every part of her ached.

“You look tired,” he said in lieu of a greeting. 

“Hello to you too.” She rolled her sore shoulders and groaned. “Don’t make fun of me. I’m a princess. I never- I know how to use a sword, but I don’t have the muscle for swinging this thing around for hours.”

He grinned impishly. 

She could tell he was definitely going to tell a joke, so she kept talking to cut him off. “Don’t. I’m a princess, I outrank you. So shut your mouth.”

He smiled. “You keep saying princess.”

Zelda stopped stretching her neck and raised a brow at him. “Yes? That’s what I am?”

“You look…” He trailed off.

“Yes?” She sheathed the sword. Her arms hurt from practicing, and she could stand to take a break while he found his words. 

Link snapped his fingers. He pulled out the slate and quickly extracted a shiny soldier’s helmet, complete with the red feather plume. He offered it to her. Hesitantly, she took it and turned it in her hands. It gleamed in the sunlight and felt cool in her hands. Carefully, she put it on. It cut off her peripheral vision, but she didn’t dislike the weight.

Link’s eyes crinkled as he held up the slate and pulled her in with his free hand. He snapped a picture of the two of them before Zelda could even react. Quickly, he opened the new picture and showed her. In the picture, he had that mischievous grin with his arm around her shoulder. She looked startled and vaguely affronted as she looked towards him rather than the camera. Her armor contrasted nicely against his soft blue tunic. Her sword was just barely in frame at her hip.

“ _ My _ knight,” he teased. 

She- She didn’t gasp, exactly, but perhaps she sucked in a breath. Without context, without knowing… One could make the argument that they had reversed roles. He looked carefree like a noble out for a jaunt, and her confusion could be mistaken for a knight’s concern for their charge. 

She should hate this. She shouldn’t look like a sweaty traveling warrior. She should look like a proper princess, a woman of quiet dignity and refinement. A paragon of royalty. She should do something about this.

Instead, she blurted out, “I look awesome!” in genuine delight. 

“You always look awesome,” corrected Link. She couldn’t tell if he was being sardonic or not.

“Don’t be pedantic.” She elbowed him playfully. She slipped a hand under the helmet to scratch at her scalp. “How’s your… Wisdom stuff going?”

He blinked in mild surprise. “I’m not sure how to start working on it, honestly. You would think that Wisdom would have been activated when I was solving shrine puzzles. I might try meditating later. See if that works.”

Zelda tilted her head. The helmet was a bit too heavy at that angle and with how tired she was, so she took it off and handed it back to Link. “If you haven’t been working on Triforce stuff, what have you been doing all day?”

He put away the helmet and then tapped the side of the slate thoughtfully. “Oh, you know. Walking the road. Looking for any merchants. Gathering supplies. I bought out one traveler’s stash of salt, so we’re good there for a bit. Next time we find a cooking pot, I’ll work on stocking up on meals.”

As if on cue, Zelda’s stomach rumbled. Link chuckled warmly. 

They had a quick dinner sitting by the messy remains of their campfire. The whole time, Zelda was tapping her fingers against her leg in thought. Her own hypotheses about Courage may be dead ends, at least for now. But if she could help him figure out Wisdom… Well, best case scenario she can use his wisdom to solve her own puzzle. Worst case, she can simply copy his technique. 

Once he was done eating, she spoke up. “Well, as you know, I spent years trying to activate-” She gestured tensely at his hand. “-so perhaps I can guide you? Or at least pass along what my tutors and teachers taught me.”

Link nodded with a smile. He sat in front of her with his legs loosely crossed. He looked especially puppishly adorable as he looked at her expectantly. 

“Wisdom is regarded as having a connection to the goddesses, specifically Nayru. Though that connection is generally embodied by the bloodline of the royal family, so that may be less relevant to you specifically.” She tried not to wince. How was she losing her point so quickly? “Others consider Wisdom as related to magic, as Zeldas are known for using the Triforce to cast spells. While a specific Zelda’s powerset may vary, they normally have supernatural intelligence, magic related to binding or banishing or healing, prophetic dreams, summoning the Bow of Light, um…” 

She trailed off, but Link nodded eagerly for her to continue.

“Basically, anything that could be used to stop Ganon alongside the hero of Courage. It varies wildly. Links are more standard, but even they can vary. Some Links can cast spells, while others don’t. Many Links and Zeldas use music in order to use magic, but that’s considered circumstantial.” She made a dismissive hand gesture. “I’m not going to get into it, but the scholarly debate over whether certain musical instruments are magical and the historical figure isn’t or vice versa is- Well, I’m glad I’ll never have to argue with  _ certain  _ tutors ever again. If I had to argue over whether a baton counted as an instrument one more time I think I’d lose it.”

Link looked thoughtful. “Music?”

“Yeah, like playing specific songs on an instrument. Wait, do you have an ocarina? If you picked up a magic ocarina since you woke up, that would make this a lot easier.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Nope. No instruments. Let me think. I have an idea.” He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

Zelda tapped her fingers on her leg and watched him meditate. She calculated whether or not she should stand up and go back to testing the Master Sword. He looked calm, but the silence made her feel antsy. Honestly, all this Triforce talk was a little draining. She had spent her whole life trying to activate Wisdom, so it felt a little repetitive to talk it out with Link. Even if he was a good listener, there’s only so many angles to consider before one starts going cross eyed. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Link stiffen minutely. He opened his eyes and blinked at her.

Zelda straightened up and leaned forward. “Well?” 

“I think I figured something out. One second.”

Zelda leaned onto her hands to get closer. “What? Show me.”

He nodded quickly at her before shutting his eyes again. “Oh, wait. Hang on.” Within seconds, his right hand, which was loosely grasping his knee, started to glow. Link opened his eyes and looked down at his hand. “Look!” He waved a bit, and the glow left a faint trail of faintly blue light. 

Zelda gasped and scooted closer to peer at it. Unbelievable. Impossible. The left triangle was lit. Wisdom. Wisdom! “Oh! Look at  _ that _ . How did you do that?” There was a bitter feeling behind her teeth, that he was better at her in this, in  _ everything _ , but she focused on his delighted face. She could be frustrated with her own lack of progress once she was done celebrating and learning from his.

Link shrugged nonchalantly. He held his hand aloft. “Now what? How do I… do stuff?”

“I’m not sure. Do you feel any different?” She bit her tongue to stop herself from asking leading questions. She didn’t want to disrupt or distract him.

He hummed. “A little? Kinda… floaty? Hm. That’s not it. Feels like my thoughts are bigger than my head.” His mouth twisted into a sheepish grin. “I feel focused. Like that moment when you figure out the solution to a hard puzzle and you solve it in one try without really actively thinking about it?”

She stood up, too excited to sit anymore. Zelda wanted to pace, but settled on circling him instead. He twisted his head to watch her, but got distracted looking at his own hand. She put a hand to her chin as she thought. “Hmm. That does sound wise. Courage felt very physical, so it makes sense that Wisdom is more cerebral.”

“Neat.” He flipped his hand over to check the palm briefly. “Do you think I can shoot lasers?”

She circled him a few more times. “Hmm. Possibly. If we accept a certain division of, let’s say- Well, normally our roles and our piece of the Triforce are inseparable. But clearly that’s not true for us. Obviously. While there is some amount of difference between one Triforce wielder and the next, we clearly have something else going on. A swap of our Triforce pieces. But, rather than a complete swap, it's more complicated than that. I still, for lack of a better term, have ‘princess’ abilities and you have ‘hero’ abilities.”

Link waved his glowing hand in the air slowly. “Like how I was able to deal the killing blow on Ganon, and you were able to summon the Bow of Light.”

“Correct. So there must be some delineation between what constitutes a ‘hero’ power rather than a ‘Courage’ power. Wielding the Master Sword is ‘Courage,’ while killing Ganon is ‘hero’ related. Vice versa, summoning the bow is ‘princess,’ while perhaps a connection with the goddesses is ‘Wisdom.’”

Link looked up from his hand to watch her circle him. “Could be random. Or features of our roles are interwoven on a level that’s invisible to us.” He looked thoughtfully up at a cloud. “Like… how certain physical traits are often seen together, even if they don’t cause each other. Like how if someone has red hair, they often have freckles, even if red hair doesn’t cause freckles. It’s even possible that we’ve done something to cause this swap. Maybe me dying? No, wait, there’s been princesses who died before their heroes before, and this never happened. So, it being our fault is less likely, in my eyes.”

Zelda hummed in thought and switched directions in her pacing. “...We need to make a list of- I’m getting off topic. We can figure out ‘why’ and ‘how’ once we figure out what the limits and facts are. We need more data.”

“Agreed.” Link set his hand back in his lap. Alarmingly, the glow faded. Almost as quickly as it started, it was gone. He didn’t seem perturbed, so Zelda hoped it was on purpose. 

“How did you do it?” What was he thinking when he did it? Would it work for her? She held herself back from overloading him with embarrassing questions. 

Link got a glint in his eye. “It was something you said. About music. It reminded me of something else. And I might have an idea that could help you activate yours.” He grinned at her playfully. “How do you feel about a little detour?”


	10. Chapter 10

Zelda can be patient. She can be quiet and peaceful and at ease. She had years of training. Poised and polite as a perfect princess. She _could_ be. 

“Where are we going? Are we going to get there today? Will we have to warp? Who are we going to meet?” She fiddled with Spinch’s reins. A light breeze tousled her hair and swept it messily out of her face. 

Link smirked. One of his hands was wrapped around Magatha’s reins as he lazily steered. 

Zelda chewed on her lip for just a moment. Link had been tight lipped on the subject since he had his realization yesterday and had refused to open up about it all of today. They’d been riding for a few hours now, and really it was only courteous to share his plan with his traveling partner. It was only logical. Rational, even. 

“Pleeeeeease! Where are we _going_?” Zelda whined.

Link laughed. 

“Oh, laugh it up.” Zelda sat up primly in her saddle. “Mister Wisdom on too high of a horse to talk with his poor suffering companion. Leading me into any number of horrid scenarios unprepared. ‘How did you die?’ They’ll ask. ‘Oh, you know. My poor fragile heart couldn’t take the _stress_.’ I’m over a hundred years old, you know!”

“My horse is taller than yours,” Link affirmed.

She snorted in a very unladylike manner. She couldn’t completely smother her smile. “Can not believe this. Can not. Unbelievable.”

“Can’t believe it,” he echoed helpfully.

She dug her heels into Spinch’s sides. Spinch jolted forwards and twisted in front of Magatha in an attempt to block her. Magatha sedately and calmly sidestepped. Link stuck his tongue out at her as they passed.

“Can _not_ believe this. I outrank you, you know.”

Magatha suddenly sped up into a trot. She clicked her tongue at Spinch and cantered to catch up. Link gave her a silly grin. She gladly returned it.

* * *

Despite her pleading, Link didn’t tell her anything. Not where they were going, not who they were meeting, and not how long the trip would be. They skirted around the Great Plateau and headed south. After only a couple hours of total travel, they were within sight of Lake Hylia. Zelda was delighted to see that the majestic stone bridge was still standing. A feat of Hyrulian engineering prowess: a bridge hundreds of meters across, wide enough to hold multiple carriages side by side, and sturdy enough to stand up to a century of neglect.

But Link didn’t lead her to the bridge. Instead, he veered completely off the road and let Magatha carefully pick her way downhill to the lake’s shore. 

“Are we meeting a zora? Or are we going swimming?” called Zelda as she followed. Spinch slowly walked down the grassy slope.

Link didn’t answer. He instead hopped off Magatha and walked to the shore on foot. Zelda copied him, and after giving Spinch a kiss on the nose, shuffled her way to his side. She windmilled her arms and tried to not slide down the muddy bank into the quiet water. He breathed out through his nose at her antics.

“These are new boots, give me a break.” She peered out over the lake. Lake Hylia was the largest lake in Hyrule, big enough to have gentle waves lapping at its banks. The bridge towered over them, far enough away to not cast a shadow over them. She’d never seen it from this angle. She could just barely make out colorful shapes moving around behind the parapets. Bokoblins, probably. Maybe lizalfos. They tended to pop up around water.

She rested her hand on her sheath without consciously thinking about it. 

Link elbowed her lightly and then sat on the ground. “Now we wait.”

Zelda nudged him with her boot. “Why?”

He smiled up at her cheerfully.

She sighed and sat beside him. She attempted to sit on a patch of grass, but she was resigned to inevitably getting her whole outfit muddy.

Zelda let the silence hold for a few minutes. Link pulled off his boots and splashed his feet in the water like a child. She wrinkled her nose at him. Lake water was disgusting. Who knew what was floating in there?

“Who are we waiting for? Some sort of… music master? Is a zora musician gonna pop out of the water? Or am I supposed to do? Something? With the lake?”

Link hummed thoughtfully. “Oh, wait. A musician!” He turned the slate on and flipped to his notes and quests. “I do have some riddles from this ruto musician that I could use your help with. I figured out most of them, but sometimes they’re too…” He seesawed his hand. “...flowery for me.”

“Is he _here_?” Zelda asked exasperatedly. Did this have anything to do with anything?

“Kass? No, I don’t think so.”

She huffed and slugged him in the shoulder. “Then why are we here.”

“We’re waiting.”

“I _know_ we’re-” She took a deep breath. “Are you gonna tell me what we’re waiting for?”

He hummed for a long time. “Nope.” He popped the p with a smirk.

“Uggh.” Heedless of the mud, Zelda flopped onto her back. She stared up at the bright blue sky and the fluffy white clouds chasing their way across the sky. “Tell me when they get here, at least.”

“Oh, you’ll know.” She could hear the teasing expression in his voice.

Zelda dug the heels of her nice boots into the lakeside mud and groaned. She hated waiting. She wanted to _go_. She wanted very badly to hop on her cool horse and ride to where she wanted to go and not let anything stop her. She wanted to continue her self inflicted quest to tell Hyrule’s allies that she was back and ready to take up responsibility for her neglected country. 

She glanced at her hand reflexively. She had things she wanted to tell the world.

Though, counterintuitively, she liked this. She liked him. She liked telling jokes and watching him think and sitting with him. And even if her hands fidgeted for want of something to do and even if she was itchy to get going, well, that’s part of the charm, she supposed. To have someone she trusts enough to slow down for when they say ‘wait.’ 

Every part of her brain that wasn’t freaking out over everything that had happened in the last 48 hours (maybe the past week. Defeating Ganon was still kind of a big deal!) was full of fondness for Link. Considering her uncontrolled powers, the implications of their impossible swap on their entire lives, and the upcoming meeting with the new Gerudo chief… Maybe 30%? 30% fondness for Link sounded about right. 

She glanced over at him. He had pulled his feet out of the water and had wrapped his arms around his knees. His eyes were soft and distant as he watched the lake. He looked truly peaceful.

She leaned back and looked at the sky. She studied the clouds lazily. What was she going to say when she got to Gerudo Town? Her initial plan, as loose as it was, was to visit each of her allies to inform them that Ganon was defeated, Zelda was back, and that she was ready to take up her duties as Hyrule’s head of government. Maybe drum up some support for rebuilding and repairing the castle. 

But now? Now on top of all of that, she needed to tell the kingdom about their… not problem, but their switch. She didn’t want to say ‘problem,’ because it wasn’t a problem, but it was kind of unnerving, and potentially a red flag, or perhaps it was just fate fucking her over again, and why would she end up with _Courage_ of all things, and what did it mean about her that she didn’t even _know_ until now? Was she not courageous enough? Was her life not full of enough opportunities to be brave that now she had to figure all this out on her own?

“I miss the Champions,” she said suddenly. She missed a lot of people, but the Champions would have been able to help. Both diplomatically and emotionally. How was she supposed to face the Gerudo people if Urbosa wasn’t there? How could she face any of them without her team to back her up? And without her facing their people, how was she supposed to rebuild Hyrule Castle? How was she supposed to rise to the next step in her life?

Link hummed from somewhere out of sight. She tilted her head to face towards the sound. With her cheek pressed to the grass, she watched him practice with some sort of enormous metal boomerang. He flicked his eyes towards her with a soft smile before continuing to slash and feint with the weapon. On the steep muddy slope, it was quite impressive the moves he was able to pull off. 

She watched him move for a while with her face pressed into the ground. Maybe she was overthinking this. This trip was just the first steps in rebuilding Hyrule. She couldn’t get caught up in the big picture stuff before she had even established her presence. And Link would help her. She wasn’t doing this alone. 

* * *

Zelda fell in and out of a shallow nap while cloud watching. She figured that Link would wake her if his mystery teacher (?) showed up. Every time she woke, blinking at the sun, Link was doing something else. Practicing with weapons, catching bugs in his hands, carefully cleaning the horses’ hooves… He seemed to have endless energy for doing endless tiny tasks. 

Currently, he was weaving long blades of grass into circlets. The first few had fallen apart in his hands, but the next three were carefully balanced on Zelda’s head. Another two were perched on top of his own messy mop of blonde hair. 

“You’re gonna run out of grass eventually,” she mumbled.

He blew a puff of air out of his nose. “I’ll just steal some more.”

“That’s illegal.” She closed her eyes. “I’ll tell… the grass guards on you.”

Another puff of air. “The grass guards?”

“‘Cause you’re doing grass crimes. Put you in the grass dungeon.”

A real chuckle this time. “Forest Temple.”

Her smile crinkled her sun warmed skin. It was past noon and it would be getting cold and dark soon, but for right now, she was warm and happy. 

Link finished his final grass circlet and placed it gently on his head. Three for each of them. Balanced and fair. There was a joke to be made about the significance of the number three, but Zelda couldn’t be bothered to figure it out. Something, something, Triforce. 

“Shouldn’t these be-” Zelda sat up, holding one hand to her head to keep the woven grass circlets from slipping off. “Shouldn’t these be flowers? Flower crowns are more standard.” She frowned at nothing. “I’ve heard they’re more usual. To weave.”

“Ran out. Actually.”

Zelda huffed out a soft laugh. “Of flowers? Doing what?”

Link gestured behind him loosely. He carefully laid on the bank of the lake. The circlets almost immediately slipped off his head, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

Zelda turned her head to look where he had gestured. Their horses were standing a short distant uphill, grazing serenely. Magatha’s mane and tail were woven through with freshly picked flowers. A sprig of tiny blue blossoms was falling over her warm brown eye.

Zelda snorted. “She’s adorable. Can’t believe she hasn’t shaken them out yet.”

Link closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “She likes it.”

* * *

Zelda let herself worry for the next few hours. The sun was slipping lower as the afternoon wore on, and she was thinking about everything. There was so much she didn’t know about this world, and she was expected to rule it? Would the other leaders of Hyrule take her reappearance as a good thing, or would they-? Well, Zora’s Domain was on her side at least. Gerudo were a wild card. The chief that replaced Urbosa could be helpful or harmful for her quest, depending on her attitude. Honestly, the Gerudo shouldn’t be her first stop logically, but it made sense geographically. And after that were the Ruto. Again, another wildcard, but the Ruto were generally friendly people. Honest. There was a strong chance that they would back her because it was the right thing to do. The Gorons were loyal and very family oriented. Her and Link’s relationship with Daruk would be enough to convince any goron to help them, let alone her bloodline. Based on her look at the slate’s map, most hylians were spread out in small settlements. They would have nothing to lose from a central government. Guards to protect travelers and traders and improvements to roads and infrastructure would be welcomed. Even if the love for the royal family had faded after her failure, they could still easily be counted as support. 

Lost in her thoughts, Zelda didn’t notice Link stand up and move out of her line of sight. Her gaze was fixed on the horizon as she chewed her lip and thought through every worst case scenario she could think of. 

She was in the middle of pondering ‘what if every person in Hyrule liked the idea of a central government but hated her, specifically,’ when Link let out a soft “hup!” and threw something round and glowing into the lake. It landed with a splash and floated serenely, bobbing with every tiny wave. Zelda opened her mouth to ask a question. The orb exploded in a burst of blue light, sending out a dramatic wave and blowing back her hair. 

“Wh-?” she started to say.

Link took a running leap into the lake, cannonballing into the fading ripples of his bomb. He doggy paddled in a tight circle, grabbing floating shapes out of the water and holding them to his chest. After just a moment, he lunged towards the bank and pulled himself up with his one free hand.

He drug himself up onto the muddy shore. He looked pitiful and small in his soaked clothes. He flipped his head to get his wet hair out of his face. In his arms was several decently sized bass.

“Why are you throwing _bombs?_ ” 

Link flipped over onto his back in the mud and tapped at the slate to store his haul. “Fishing.”

“With bombs?” Zelda couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“It’s efficient.” He leaned up on his elbows. “Faster than trying to swim after them, too.”

She leaned back and laughed. The image of Link furiously paddling to try to catch fish in his bare hands was too funny. “You’re wild.”

Knocked out of her thoughts, she let her worries go for the moment. It wasn’t like she could fix anything right now, and her main anxiety was her lack of knowledge. That could only be fixed with time and travel. 

The sun was starting to set. The blue sky had become progressively cloudier as they whiled away the hours and was now tinting pink and orange. Zelda watched the color reflect off of the still lake. A quiet end to a quiet day. 

Link twitched and sat up suddenly. 

Zelda perked up at the same time as Link. There was… a sound, high and ethereal. Distant swelling music. The wind was starting to pick up, too. Like a storm was rolling in. Link stood up and bounced on his toes, glancing at her excitedly. She huffed out a quiet disbelieving laugh as she got to her feet.

“Do you hear it?” he asked.

“Yes.” She studied the lake. It was hard to see anything in the dimming sunset. “But I don’t _see_ anything.”

Link suddenly reached out and squeezed her hand. “One minute. Just wait one minute.”

“Of course.” Zelda squeezed back and dropped his hand. The wind caught her cloak and blew it back like a sail.

The music (where was it coming from?) swelled and built upon itself. She could almost feel it in her bones. But it wasn’t loud. It wasn’t like listening to goron drumming and feeling the shake in her chest. It was entirely different. Despite the fact that it was overwhelming enough that she felt the need to speak up over it, it wasn’t rattling the ground.

Curiously, she reached up and covered her ears. The sound of the wind lessened, but the music didn’t. It wasn’t a physical sound at all. It was pure magic, and it was powerful enough to be almost deafening. Her stomach dropped, and she couldn’t tell if it was from fear or excitement. 

The lake, which had been mirror still, started to ripple. 

“Farosh,” breathed Link at her side.

The music swelled and the wind picked up as a gargantuan shape burst from the water. It was _big,_ as wide as that tiny island in the lake, and it just kept _rising_. With a pang of pure panic, she suddenly recognized that what she’s looking at was the tip of a horn. It looked like it was moving slowly, but it was so big, floating so effortlessly that it must have been faster than a horse, faster than a bird in flight. The nose rose out of the water, followed by the rest of it’s almost horse-like head. It wasn’t a horse, no, and she felt a pang of panic. It was almost shaped like Calamity Ganon. 

“Dragon?” she whispered under her breath. She couldn’t hear herself over the sheer noise, both physical and magical. Her hair swooshed up in the buffeting winds. The dragon was so large that it’s movements were creating an updraft. 

Farosh’s enormous head breached out of the water, then what felt like miles of twisting snake like body. It’s massive head was wreathed by a spiky mane. Its bear sized hands grasped and clawed at the air as it traveled straight up. It was higher than the bridge, and it was still emerging from the lake. Balls of lightning shed off its scaley hide. Zelda stared up in awe with her mouth open. 

Suddenly, the dragon twisted its head downwards. Pointed towards them. It’s eyes, big and unfocused like a whale, like something too big to care about something so small, were pointed in her direction. Slowly, with all the grace and momentum of an avalanche, it ribboned and twisted down and down. It’s body finally fully emerged from the lake, sending one last wave that rushed and beat at the shore at her feet. It coiled in on itself loosely in the air above the lake, twisting and shifting like an aurora. It’s massive snout was pointed directly at her, unerringly locked. 

Zelda held her breath. Her heart was beating so fast that she feared everyone could hear it. She looked at the dragon, glowing and magnificent, set against the vivid sunset. It drifted closer, it’s head maybe only a hundred feet away. Blankly curious, like an animal. Powerful, like a spirit.

Link whooped at her side and fist pumped in excitement. She couldn’t hear what he was saying over the music. This close, it was almost soothing. Almost sweet, like a harp. Loud as anything and strong. Powerful. Humming in her and ringing in her blood.

She furrowed her brow and tried to listen. Or feel, whatever the verb was for experiencing magic. It was _familiar_. It felt like righteous zeal. Like standing up to her father and demanding respect. Like leading the Champions. Like leaping in front of that guardian’s beam to defend Link. Like making her line in the sand and saying ‘no more.’ No further than this. 

Defense.

Justice. 

Bravery. 

_Courage._

Zelda gasped. Farosh blinked at her, ponderously slow. The wind coming off the dragon was stirring her hair into a nest. 

And in that moment, resonating in harmony with Farosh, Zelda understood. Wisdom was innate. A gift, something deep within placed there with purpose. Courage was _action_. People choose Courage because Courage chose them. 

Courage was something you do.

She could do this. 

Zelda widened her stance, squared her shoulders, and drew her sword. She could almost feel the staticy hum of lightning in her blood. She let out a whooping battle cry as she swung the sword aloft. It lit up in her hand, glowing almost as bright as the dragon’s eyes. The ring of magic was everywhere, and she echoed it back to Farosh. The dragon blinked slowly as it studied her. 

The song of magic swelled between them. Farosh tilted its head away, twisting upwards in a slow barrel roll. The wind shifted into a wild updraft as it climbed upwards. Her hair was a complete mess and the length of her cloak was whipping in the air like it was trying to escape. She let out a laugh and swung the glowing Master Sword side to side in a wave. 

Quickly, so quickly it almost felt like a dream, Farosh flew up into the sky. As the sky settled into twilight, it broke through the cloud level with its single forward pointing horn and disappeared from sight. 

The song faded as it moved away, but Zelda could remember it. She could still remember the singing power that filled her. Confidently, she let go of Courage. The sword and the Triforce on her hand fell dark immediately. With just a second to search for the feeling, that song, that power inside of her, she activated Courage. It was difficult, but she did it. 

Link whooped at her side. 

“I can do this,” she said, half confident and half amazed. 

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [bullrunpicnicker](https://www.bullrunpicnicker.tumblr.com) and sometimes i post memes about this fic. come talk to me!


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